I don't think of my deviled eggs as having evolved. I think of them as a series of incidents.

The church potluck, 2009

I had never boiled an egg with intention before. I just — boiled them. Water, eggs, heat, however long seemed right. Then I halved them, mashed the yolks with whatever was in the refrigerator, piped them back with a Ziploc bag I'd cut the corner off of, and brought them to our church's spring potluck in a container that was too small for the number of eggs I'd made, so they arrived slightly crushed.

They were also lopsided. I didn't know yet that eggs should be stored upright in the fridge so the yolk centers itself. Mine had yolks off to one side, which meant when I halved them, one half had almost no yolk and one half was basically a yolk bowl.

A woman named Margaret ate one and said, "Oh honey, you need to add a little sugar."

I said, "Sugar? In deviled eggs?"

She said, "Just a pinch. It balances."

She was eighty-four. I decided to take her seriously.

Easter 2011

I made them for Easter at my in-laws. I had added Margaret's pinch of sugar. I had also bought a proper pastry bag with a star tip, because the Ziploc bag method was making them look like something from a school cafeteria. I had switched to Dijon mustard.

They looked intentional. They tasted like something a person had thought about.

My mother-in-law said, "These are good."

I understood this to be high praise, because she does not say things she does not mean.

The block party, summer 2013

I brought deviled eggs to a neighborhood block party and a man named Gerald asked if there was bacon in them.

There was not, at that point, bacon in them.

I said, "No, why?"

He said, "I don't know, I feel like there should be."

He moved on. He had no idea what he had done.

I spent the rest of the block party thinking about bacon in deviled eggs. Not on top, as a garnish — folded into the filling, crumbled fine, so you tasted it in every bite but couldn't necessarily identify it as bacon.

By the 4th of July I had a new recipe. Gerald never knew.

The office holiday party, December 2015

I brought three kinds.

This was the first time I brought three kinds to anything. I want to be honest about the fact that I was aware, when I was making them, that this was a lot. My husband asked why I needed three versions for a work party.

I said, "I'm testing something."

He said, "You're doing a deviled egg experiment at your office Christmas party."

I said, "Yes."

He said he understood.

The three kinds: classic (Dijon, mayo, pinch of sugar, smoked paprika, bacon crumbled in), a smoky version with smoked paprika worked into the filling itself and crispy sage leaves on top, and a version with horseradish and dill and whole-grain mustard that I was mentally calling "the sophisticated one" even though I told no one this.

The sophisticated ones went first. I was not expecting that.

A coworker named Terri, who is not easily impressed, ate one and said, "What is in these?"

I started listing ingredients. She held up a hand.

"Just write it down," she said.

Thanksgiving 2017

Margaret had died two years before. I brought my best version to Thanksgiving and thought about her while I was making them. A pinch of sugar, she'd said. Just to balance.

I've thought about her advice maybe five hundred times since 2009. One ingredient suggestion from an eighty-four-year-old woman at a church potluck, and I've been adjusting the recipe ever since.

I brought the three-variety assortment. My sister-in-law Dana watched me arrange them on the platter — in sections, labeled with small folded cards because I had apparently crossed into that territory — and said, "Eloise. They're deviled eggs."

I said, "They are."

She said, "You've labeled them."

I said, "So people know what they're choosing."

She ate a classic one, then a sophisticated one, and didn't say anything else, which I interpreted as acknowledgment that the cards were, in fact, useful.

A random Tuesday, sometime in 2019

I made deviled eggs for dinner. Just — for dinner. Nobody was coming over. There was no event. I had eggs and I felt like making them.

This is when I understood that deviled eggs had stopped being an appetizer I made for gatherings and had become something I just made. A thing I cooked the way I cooked other things.

I made the sophisticated ones, because those were what I was in the mood for. I ate them with a salad. It was a perfectly normal Tuesday.

I told my husband what I'd made for dinner and he said, "Were you alone?"

I said yes.

He said, "You made deviled eggs for yourself on a Tuesday."

I said, "Is that strange?"

He thought about it and said, "For most people. Not for you."

Easter 2021

I brought four dozen eggs to Easter at my sister's house. One hundred percent sophisticated variety, because I'd stopped making the classic ones at events — people always chose the other kinds first and the classics sat there looking basic, which felt unfair to the classics.

My nephew, who was twelve, ate four of them and asked if I could teach him how to make them.

I said absolutely, and I taught him the whole thing: the storing upright trick, the timing for hard-boiled eggs that don't have that gray ring around the yolk, the pastry bag technique, the way you fold in the bacon at the last minute so it stays crispy, the logic behind the sugar.

He made them at home and brought them to school for a class project. He texted me afterward: "Everyone said they were good. I told them my aunt taught me."

Margaret would have liked this.

Now

I still make three kinds, and I still bring them to enough events that people have started requesting them specifically. I do not consider this an ego problem. I consider it a natural consequence of twelve years of iteration.

The classic is still yolk, Dijon, mayo, sugar, smoked paprika on top, crumbled bacon in the filling. The smoky one has smoked paprika in the filling, crispy sage leaves. The sophisticated has whole-grain mustard, Greek yogurt mixed into the mayo for tang, horseradish, dill, minced capers, prosciutto crisped in a pan, a single caper on top.

I am a person who has opinions about deviled eggs. I've spent twelve years becoming this person, one incident at a time. A church potluck, an Easter, a block party conversation with a man named Gerald who has no idea what he started.

Margaret knew, though. She knew exactly what she was doing when she said "just a pinch."

I think she was testing me. I think I passed.