Seated as she is adjacent to the editor of The Commons, Annie Beckmann (senior writer, Marcom) recognized she was ineligible for the "Spring at SU" photo contest. Even still, she shared this entry as well as the story behind it:
The thunderous knock on the front door of Marketing
Communications made everyone in the office gasp. Sure didn’t sound like the
Easter Bunny, yet the fellow was carrying two little egg cartons. The bright
colors that peeked out were a dead giveaway.
He came directly to my desk with determination. “I’ve had a
heckuva time finding you! Here are your eggs!” said chef Michael Blackwell, a
long-time friend and fellow judge at the annual Bite of Seattle.
Each year, Blackwell and artist Peter Gemma hollow out more
eggs than anybody could fathom. They fill them with the tiniest candies and
trinkets, tape them closed and paint them in bright colors with intricate
designs. A few years back, the effort
reached a feverish pitch when they decorated 1,000 eggs. This year, they painted
a more modest number, a mere 400. My neck aches just thinking about it!
As I opened my egg cartons, I spotted one painted with baby
chicks, another with a big orange and gold butterfly. Imagine an egg painted in
red lobsters, another with potted yellow daffodils. Many are abstract designs.
Some are intricate geometrics. Not since
I interviewed a Ukrainian woman in Edmonton, Alberta, who had painstakingly etched
all of The Last Supper on a humble egg have I seen such amazing detail.
Anyway, when Blackwell and Gemma started this tradition years
ago, they explained it’s extremely good luck to break one of these eggs on your
head on Easter Sunday and let the goodies inside and the shell fragments fall
as they may. Kind of like a miniature piñata,
except the blunt instrument you use is your head.
Some say it’s a tradition started by Marco Polo in Spain
with confetti-filled eggs. Cascarones, as they’re called, later became popular
in Mexico. I’ve heard people claim it’s a spin on a Greek Orthodox tradition,
too.
Gemma and Blackwell only fill some of their eggs with
confetti and always warn people when they do because they make such a mess when
cracked.
“You know, you’re the very last remaining adult with no
children at home who actually cracks them open. Everybody else collects them
and puts them in their china cabinet,” Blackwell told me.
“Sorry, Mike,” I said. “You told me years ago to encourage
people to crack them on their heads for good luck and it has become my favorite
Easter ritual.“
I described my fiancé’s 93-year-old Mom named Shy, who’s
both blind and hard of hearing. To watch her, to hear her giggle when she
whacks her head with an egg makes my Easter complete.
There's still time to enter the "Spring at SU" photo contest. Grab a camera, take a picture, send it to theem@seattleu.edu and qualify for a $10 gift card to Starbucks.