When I was a kid, I loved the week after Easter because there were always egg salad sandwiches in my lunch box, a relative rarity the rest of the school year when baloney, Velveeta cheese, deviled ham or tuna prevailed. Obviously I owed the sandwiches to Easter eggs, and my bet is that there are some households out there this coming week that face a pile of boiled and dyed eggs. Aren’t you the lucky ones? There is so much to do with them.

Plain boiled eggs: Put an egg into a lunch bag and eat the peeled egg plain with salt and pepper. Slice them into a spinach salad and add red onion thinly sliced. Make a chef salad with a little leftover Easter ham and a little Swiss cheese slivered into it and a few quarters of boiled eggs here and there.

Egg salad variations: Obviously egg salad sandwiches or just egg salad on a bed of lettuce. Mash up eggs with mayonnaise or any favorite salad dressing. Add herbs such as parsley, chives, and dill to the egg mixture, and-or finely chopped shallots. Curry powder or a little mustard is good if you like a little zip. You can make a very nice dip by layering guacamole and egg salad and spreading a little sour cream on top, sprinkled with chopped herbs and chilling it well before serving it with crackers or vegetables.

Deviled eggs: People tell me that they don’t eat eggs anymore but a plate of deviled eggs at a potluck vanishes like dew before the morning sun. You know how to do this: divide the eggs, pop out the yolks and mash them with mayonnaise and your preferred seasonings. Some sprinkle caviar on top for special occasions. Garnish with olive slices or capers, parsley or paprika.

Most of the above ideas call for fairly simple assembly of ingredients. Creamed eggs, another favorite of mine, and oddly enough a much neglected recipe, is a lovely lunch, brunch or light supper dish. At our house, we eat it on toast or on baked potatoes, though I think it would be lovely on rice. In fact there is a great old fashioned dish called kedgeree which combines boiled eggs, rice and cooked fish.

Once you make the creamed eggs, you can do all sorts of things like add asparagus, peas, spinach, or slivers of smoked salmon. The following couple of recipes walk you through the white or cream sauce to creamed eggs to kedgeree. You’ll see that they follow each other right along.

Looking for…

Mushroom Soup. Jamie asked me the other day why I didn’t make mushroom soup, and I said I didn’t know why except maybe I never had a good recipe for one. I’ll take any advice or recipe you have to share.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.

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White or Cream Sauce

Yields 1½ cups sauce.

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 cup of milk or cream

Salt and pepper

Melt the butter and whisk the flour into it and cook until it is bubbly then whisk in the milk or cream, and cook until thick and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

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Creamed Eggs

Makes 3 servings.

1 batch of white or cream sauce

4 boiled eggs

Add-ins like asparagus, peas, ham, smoked salmon (optional)

Your choice of toast, baked potato, or rice

Cut the eggs in slices or chop them and stir into the white or cream sauce. Season with salt and pepper, paprika or curry to taste. Heat through and serve on the toast, potato or rice.