Pickled Eggs

Really this post should be titled "Mrs. Ruby." Because it's more about Mrs. Ruby than it is pickled eggs. Pickled eggs are just. . . . directly tied to Mrs. Ruby.

Mrs. Ruby was this wonderfully acerbic (I gotta look that up later and make sure it's the right word) lady with whom I worked about 20 years ago. I did some part time work at a small, family owned, retail store in my hometown. Mrs. Ruby was a sister to the man who owned the business for years, and hence a sister-in-law to the lady who owned it when I worked there.

My brother worked there before me, I think, and then he worked there a long time after me. A family friend managed it, and they hired the usual assortment of high school seniors and college kids for part-time work. Including me a couple of times.

Mrs. Ruby was . . . . old . . . it seemed. She was old before the lava cooled in the earth. In fact, she probably lit her first cigarette on a spark from the sun in the Big Bang. I don't know what she was like in her youth, but she was fun in a "I'm too old to care" sorta way when I got to know her.

She would occasionally (every day) fall asleep at work, with a cigarette in her mouth. While she napped, the cigarette would burn down with the ash defying gravity. Not falling while she sat straight up in the chair. When a customer would come through the door, she would wake up, and in one smooth set of motions, stand up and take the cigarette and sling it idly towards the nearest ashtray and begin walking towards the customer. She never really got ashes in the tray. And one couldn't think she really intended to, but it was the gesture, I suppose. Since she knew the boys had to vacuum at close anyway.

She never said an ugly word to me that I can recall. But I can recall she was a great supervisor. You could spend an hour doing stock work with her over your shoulder, or she would wait until you'd spent an hour to point out a couple of mistakes that could make your work useless. She was fun like that.

I loved her, truly did.

A favorite story of mine is one day she said something like, "My windshield seems dirty and I can't see out of it. Can I ask you to clean it?" Well, sure. So off I went with the windex and paper towels to scrub the windshield clean for her. The only problem was. . . the windshield was clean. So (the way I remember it) on a hunch I went back and asked for her carkeys. One stroke of a paper towel later, I realized the inside of the windshield was covered in a thin film of cigarette smoke. I thought it was funny then and I think it's funny now. She loved smoking.

Mrs. Ruby made pickled eggs. Now, I'd never heard of pickled eggs. I don't like pickles. It took me years and years to realize that pickles are really cucumbers that have been ruined. I don't like pickles in egg salad, potato salad, or any salad. I don't want a pickle next to a burger or on a bun. I hate pickles. But for some reason, when Mrs. Ruby brought a great big jar of pickled eggs, it was like green-vinegar-magic.

Oh. My. Gosh. So good. The employees would kinda fight over them. A great big jar that once held pickles now held boiled eggs that slowly turned green on the inside. The longer they sat in the vinegar, the more the green made it's way inside the white of the egg like a ring on a tree. And the more delicious the egg became. Oh like ambrosia with a yolk.

Well, for years I've wanted to try and recreate Mrs. Ruby's culinary masterpiece. I remembered her simple instructions. But I couldn't really imagine myself following through. But oh how I wanted it. I've recently researched it on the internet and found that most recipes were just variations on the simple instructions she gave me. But still, me? No.

Well, MyFella took to it one day. He bought a great big jar of pickles and gave them all to his mother for his little bity nieces to eat. Then he called me one night and said, "It's done. Two dozen. Boiled and shelled. And I followed the instructions." When he delivered them to me, the jar was sealed with the lid puckered in tight, so I know that good juice was boiling hot when he sealed it up. And they had been in there long enough for the green to start soaking through. And the flavor? Just like I remembered. Just like I remembered her making them.

Mrs. Ruby has been gone a long time now. I often think of her as I pass here in town a company where I know her son-in-law had worked for many, many years. I guess that's why the thought of her and her eggs came back to me so often. It's been at least two decades since I worked at that store. The eggs are delicious in their own right, with or without the memory, and possibly a little better knowing MyFella took the time to make them. I've had two now, and with that first vinegary bite, as the texture of smooth boiled egg white blends with crumbly yellow, if I close my eyes, I can be 20 again. For just a moment, I can wonder if I'll go drag main street tonight. If my co-worker and I are going to stock the shelves. And I can smell the smoke from Mrs. Ruby's cigarette. I can hear that slight gravel in her aged voice, and wonder how she can seem to be sound asleep, yet so wide awake in an instant. I can see her coming in that back door, purse in hand, so spry for a lady in her 70's. She was a marvel.