With the holidays here, menus are coming together, complete with traditional favorites and risky mystery dishes. Congealed salad, anyone?

Some will attempt homemade whole berry cranberry sauce rather than the perfectly fine, deep burgundy, canned cranberry sauce. If it doesn’t have ridges, I don’t want it.

Some folks, in the name of good health, will do creative things with Brussels sprouts and artichokes. Some might even have a salad (tossed, not congealed).

Side note: any Thanksgiving or Christmas salad must have mayonnaise or some other goo as a binder. There are many options: layered salad, broccoli salad, even cole slaw–all have a creamy goodness that camouflages the taste of anything remotely green. Plus, eating tossed salad with low-fat dressing during the cold months of the year is not healthy. You are not doing anything to help your body buffet the bitter Arctic jet stream. It is akin to traipsing outside in the cold weather with a wet head, fresh from washing. You’re just asking for it, if you ask me. At least throw some full-fat ranch on top, along with some real bacon bits.

I prefer more hearty holiday fare. Dressing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole. Turkey AND ham. Pies and cakes, fudge and candy.

And deviled eggs. Dear Lord in Heaven, let there be deviled eggs at your great banquet table.

I like my deviled eggs much as I like my life: messy, unfettered beauty. I admire eggs with perfectly piped filling that rises to a peak, maybe topped with a slice of green olive. But they’re too pretty to eat. A dash of paprika or black pepper is all the decoration the best deviled eggs need. Just spoon in the filling of mashed egg yolk, mayo, a little mustard, finely minced onions, and my mother’s sweet pickles, also finely chopped. A dash of salt and pepper pulls it all together, and voila! You have the perfect accompaniment to your holiday feast.

And oh, they go down so easy. Lush and plump, you can nibble on a deviled egg bit by bit, or you can take them down as smoothly and as quickly as hot and fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts. A dozen is just the beginning.

It wasn’t that long ago that I saw a food sign-up sheet listing “angel eggs,” and I was thoroughly confused. I had nothing in my brain on which to hook the term. I thought, is this a light dish, like angel food cake? Is it supposed to be the little pastel candy coated chocolate eggs? So I asked the organizer about it.

The answer? “Oh, we don’t want to associate deviled eggs with the devil, so we’re calling them angel eggs.” Well, people, if you want to get that legalistic with your food, at least call them stuffed eggs. But even I tried calling them stuffed eggs years ago, when at the age of 21 I first learned to love the delicacies, and my mother corrected me: “It’s deviled eggs. We don’t stuff anything.”

My 21st year was marked by a variety of milestones: I had my first major drunk, I graduated from college, and I got married, in that exact order. But it will also forever be the year I learned to enjoy deviled eggs. Why had I missed out for so long?

I remember my grandmother making them, and I wanted to peel the boiled egg, to have the fun of picking the shell off the smooth white surface, but the thought of putting the finished product into my mouth made me gag. I couldn’t peel the eggs unless I would eat them too, so off to the couch I would go to pout. My little sister, an egg connoisseur from the age of three, smirked at me from the table, happily peeling eggs. Even today I don’t eat boiled eggs unless they’re chopped in a salad (with ranch), or, as described earlier, in that most delightful of appetizers or side dishes that seem to appear only at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July.

Just last week I had the honor of visiting a school in another system, and although I was excited to visit, I was a little disappointed. A group text message early in the morning informed me that Thanksgiving dinner would be served at two of our local schools, and would any of us like a plate? I had to decline. Upon arriving at the school, however, right in the middle of their faculty room conference table, were paper plates, Thanksgiving napkins, a large caramel cake, and a casserole dish of butterbeans.

Could it be?

Dreams do come true, for the school’s PTSO would be serving Thanksgiving dinner to their faculty and staff, and while I was welcome to visit the local Mexican restaurant as I did on my first visit to the school, I was also invited to partake in their feast.

They had not one, not two, but three kinds of deviled eggs. They must sure love their teachers.

I got the most messy looking ones, and they did not disappoint.