Have you seen What’s Up, Tiger Lily? If not, you should. It’s a superb Woody Allen comedy centering around the search for a secret egg salad recipe.

Today, I lived out my own version of What’s Up, Tiger Lily. You see, every time Earl and I head up north to go skiing, we eat egg salad sandwiches on the drive up. It’s a tradition stemming back from the very first ski weekend we took to Quechee, Vermont from New York City together. Earl was coming to meet what was almost my entire family- parents, sister, brother in law and two nieces all for the first time. When I picked him up on a Friday after work in the Jeep (back when she was still spiffy and not all busted) at his apartment at 98th & West End, his arms were overflowing with not only ski gear, but a bag of egg salad sandwiches and snacks for the drive.

“Egg salad?!” I scoffed, having never tried in my life, “Yuck! That’s disgusting! Who eats that?” My father had ingrained in me (I think this was some wacky holdover from the 50s) that egg salad sandwiches were “for dweebs” and “gross.” So I’d never really gave them a whirl.

“Suit yourself, more for me,” responded Earl as he dove into his. Somewhere up the Jersey pike he offered me a bite. Practically holding my nose, I tentatively ventured a nosh. “Woah! That’s pretty good,” came my response as I chewed. Luckily, my sandwich had yet to be devoured so I got to scarf it in pleasure and have been an egg salad convert ever since. We used to eat them almost every weekend during the winter, especially when we drove up north. Later when we moved together on the Upper East Side, we still would head all the way over to Lennys Bagels on the west side (99th and Broadway, to be exact) to grab some.

I even converted a few others to egg salad afterwards! Every Friday during Lent I would bring in two egg salad sandwiches to the Private Equity Firm where I worked and share one with the admin. Formerly a strictly chicken salad gal, she RAVED over them and quickly became a convert.

Once we moved to San Francisco, Earl and I spent many sad days longing for those Lennys Egg Salad sandwiches. Out here in California, they just don’t know how to make em. There’s always too much dill, or celery, drowning in mayo, or other junk. One time I even tried one with RANCH DRESSING!!! Can you believe it!?! My theory is that San Francisco (and California in general) needs more Jews. We already went through this with Matzoh ball soup- here the same problem is rearing its head.

Today, as we were packing our bags to go skiing and I was contemplating what we would eat for dinner on the drive, I reached the end of my rope. Just like I learned with matzoh ball soup, the only way to get decent egg salad out here in this stupid city is going to be to make my own. That’s IT! I’m calling Lennys!!

I called Lennys and sweet talked the manager into giving me their egg salad recipe this afternoon. My lips are sealed and I can’t post the recipe on this blog, however I will tell you that it’s deceptively simple. Idiotically simple. I’m making them right now (the eggs are cooling as I type this) and I can’t wait to see how closely my sandwiches replicate the Gold Standard. I was a little wary with bread, but went to the hippy grocery store and got the freshest, fluffiest, thickest sliced cracked wheat bread I could get my hands on.

I will end this post by saying hopefully they come out well, and that if you are ever in New York City (or happen to be there right now) to get your butt over to Lennys on the upper west side and please scarf down an egg salad sandwich in my honor.

So Earl and I decided to throw a Christmas Feast Party (more accurately- I decided, then Earl agreed), and the invitations are going out tomorrow!  In a stroke of spectacular brilliance, I christened the party “Feastivus,” only to find out a bunch other people also throw holiday parties also named Feastivus.  But… screw em .  FEAST WE SHALL, and FEASTIVUS IT SHALL BE CALLED!

So psyched for this!  Here are the invites I made up… to be schmanced up with some red and green glitter and Christmas-y drawings on the envelopes by yours truly.  Yes, we are going old school and actually sending physical invitations out in the snail mail for this one: evite, schmevite- simply not my style.

I must confess, it was a bit of a challenge to come up with the menu for Feastivus- mainly because my buddy Dom, who is vegan, is coming. Normally around here it’s meat, meat, and more meat, with a side of butter and sour cream.  I didn’t want to make him feel singled out with a “special” meal just for him. Hence the menu is a mish-mash of vegan and non-vegan foods.   So far (and I’m sure I’ll change this last minute as things get hectic… lol)… but here is a rough outline of what I’m thinking we’ll be serving:

• Appetizers: mulled wine, devilled eggs, hummus & pita chips, pickles, jams
• Entree: stuffed pork roulande in puff pastry, ratatouille
• Sides: creamed carrots, pecan wild rice pilaf, greens & berry salad with a pumpkin vinaigrette
• Dessert: Grand Marnier bread pudding, poached pears, spiked eggnog

In case you were curious, here is the text of our Feastivus invites… if you suspect I had a *tad* too much fun writing these, you would be correct

It’s Christmas time, and if that’s not an excuse for a slap-up meal, nothing is!

Always keen on cooking, when it comes to Christmas dinner, I’m pulling out all the stops.  To give y’all a meal to warm the cockles, I’ve scoured the city and neighboring farms for the freshest ingredients to make this festive feast.

Making our merry band of revelers earn their supper, Holiday attire (ugly Christmas sweaters, reindeer ears, Santa hats or the like) is encouraged.

We’re planning a feast to make the table groan! Here on Buena Vista West you’ll be tucking into a gluttonous roast of stuffed pork roulade in puff pastry. If that doesn’t get you reaching for the Pepto, there will be ratatouille, creamed carrots and pecan wild rice pilaf. To round off the opulent offering, we fill feature a greens and berries salad with pumpkin vinaigrette, deviled eggs, and a hearty offering of pickles, preserves, poached pears, and Grand Marnier bread pudding.

Wash it all down with some spiked eggnog and mulled wine, and it sounds like we’ve got ourselves a party.

Please bring a bottle of wine to share and perhaps an ornament to decorate our Christmas tree!

Looking forward to seeing you on the 21st!

ps- a special thank you to the Happy Medic, who pointed out a great place in SF to buy the Christmas printer paper for our invitations!