Eggsactly

Tonight I was cooking sig-other an egg and sausage omelet, and started thinking about eggs, of all things. How simple, how elegantly shaped, how potentially tasty.

I remember that the very first thing I cooked all by myself, at the age of 6, was a sunny-side up egg in a cast-iron frying pan, on a cast iron stove whose temperature varied with the wind currents that blew down the chimney. My parents were across the little back bay having cocktails with the neighbors, and I called them on the phone to tell them of my grand accomplishment, which left them flummoxed. I wouldn't eat the damn thing, and my mother ate it when she got home.

When I was in my 20's, and newly married, and dirt poor (I think those two things must go together), all I could afford in the protein department, aside from the occasional 1/4 pound of fatty beef to feed the both of us, was eggs. I got them from the farmer down the road. They were 10 cents a dozen, they still had feathers and chicken-shit on them, and you had to bring the carton back to buy more eggs ... unless you brought a bowl.

I made two loaves of bread twice a week with the yolks, and meringues with the whites, and every cheap egg concoction the Fanny Farmer Cookbook could come up with.

I remember putting pin-holes on either end of an egg, blowing out the contents into a bowl, and decorating the eggs to use as Christmas ornaments. And cooking up the eggs themselves in veggie omelets. Waste not, want not, etc.

Years later, I made my first (and only) souffle in the oven of a stove I got for $10. Couldn't make one before that because I couldn't afford the cheese. Nobody was allowed to move, and I remember sitting by the kitchen door with my feet up, several beers at hand, guarding the kitchen floor from anyone walking on it. The souffle was perfect, but boring tasting (cheesy clouds), and I didn't know what the hell to do with it. I think I gave it to the dog.

Then there were the egg-terror years, where eggs were pariahs. I didn't care, I ate 'em anyway. So did my parents, every damn day, and they lived to be 85 and 91.

Now there are those silly ad for eggs that are supposedly better than other eggs. I mean, what? Do their chickens have platinum butts or something?

Oh well, in my dotage, I still love eggs, and still don't give a crap about cholesterol. I just need to find more creative ways to cook them.