Ready for the big roll: How many people does it take to boil 10,800 eggs?

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Posted 4:12PM on Friday, March 29, 2002

WASHINGTON - The work was eggs-hausting at the White House Friday. Workers had 10,800 eggs to boil for Monday's egg roll -- not to mention finishing up the 25-pound, chocolate sculpture of President Bush's Scottish terrier, Barney. White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier, recognizing that Barney is "a very talented dog," sculpted the pooch holding a paintbrush and wearing a cowboy hat and glasses. "He's in the mood for painting," Mesnier said of the chocolate Barney, which stands beside another of Mesnier's creations, a 45-pound, 4-and-a-half-foot tall, chocolate Easter egg. "Barney was kind of a challenge because of his features, all the hair and everything," Mesnier said. In all, it took 20 hours to create the chocolate sculptures. "And it would take you 20 years to eat it," he told photographers there to snap pictures of his work. Meanwhile, White House assistant chef John Moeller and five others toiled away in a kitchen stacked with crates and boxes of eggs -- 30 cases of 30 dozen each, to be exact. Of the 10,800 eggs being boiled, 3,000 were being spared the dye and set aside for children to decorate on Monday. The remaining 7,800 were being colored for the egg roll on the South Lawn. While workers sorted the already colored eggs, Moeller stood watch over a huge pot of boiling water, vinegar and dye. The eggs sat in a large metal basket, which then fit inside the pot. The boiling and dyeing began at 7 a.m. and was taking most of the day. Each batch must be boiled for 12 to 15 minutes to make sure the eggs are sufficiently hard, he explained. "You look forward to it," he said when asked whether the egg-dyeing was fun or a chore. "If I was doing it once a month, that'd be a little bit different." "It's something different from a state dinner." Besides the traditional egg roll, the celebration will include egg decorating, readings by famous children's authors and celebrity appearances by Elmo, Barney the dinosaur and Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. According to the White House, the first Washington egg rolls took place on the grounds of the Capitol in the early 1870s. But after children made a mess of the lawn in 1876, lawmakers banned them. The festivities were rained out the next year, and the celebration moved to the White House in 1878. ------ On the Net: White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov