Too Many Eggs

Yesterday at Stewarts I bought two dozen eggs.

We don’t have any big baking plans. We aren’t having company over. There isn’t a potluck for which I’m required to bring a tray of deviled eggs.

The shopping list just said eggs.

But it feels like every time I cross eggs off the list, they just appear again the next day. I mean, I like Stewart’s as much as the next guy, but it’s getting a little weird going back in there every day for another dozen eggs. The clerk behind the counter is starting to look at me funny. The big question is, “Where are all these eggs going?”

I have an idea. I also think that the demand for eggs in the Fussy household is going to continue even now that Passover is behind us.

Passover is an egg heavy holiday, without a doubt. A batch of matzo balls for soup on Friday night, needs two eggs. Mrs. Fussy made a large matzo brie on Saturday morning for the family, and that required six eggs.

Those two dishes decimated the carton I bought on Friday and are the reason why eggs made the list again on Saturday.

Do you remember my recent egg cooking failure? It’s embarrassing to admit that I couldn’t boil an egg. I mean technically, I couldn’t simmer an egg, which is legit trickier. Simmering has a much wider temperature range. I was cooking the eggs on a low simmer, and they should have been on a higher simmer.

Well, the upside to the whole experience is that we learned my son loves soft boiled eggs. I mean he really loves them. Maybe not Pink Flamingos loves them. But he loves them so much that the young man can easily take down four in a sitting. And he’s not an athlete. Maybe, one day, he’ll be a mathlete. Given his increased calorie intake and his continued lean figure, I suspect a growth spurt is on the horizon.

I’ve seen how much teenagers who are involved in sports can eat. It’s terrifying. But I wasn’t expecting such an increase in appetite from the more bookish set.

Even after I cracked the code of the perfect hard boiled eggs, the boy simply switched gears from soft boiled eggs with warm custardy yolks to cold eggs with fully cooked centers. The change in temperature did not change his love or capacity for eggs.

On top of that Mrs. Fussy is also a hard boiled egg lover.

She’s a runner, and brings her lunch to work almost every day. I don’t know how she can stand to do that. When I held down an office job, going out for lunch was my reason for living. But different strokes for different folks.

Hard boiled eggs are super convenient, and now that I’ve become more competent in their production, pretty delicious. We still need to dial in exactly how many seconds the eggs need to cook to reach her desired state of interior doneness. But we’ll get there, I’m sure.

As for me, I still like my eggs poached or fried with a runny yolk. My special treat for lunch on those days when Mrs. Fussy is out of the house, and I find myself working from home, is a plate of kimchi fried rice. The dish just wouldn’t be the same without a fried egg on top.

If the love for hard boiled eggs continues unabated, I may need to explore some more Instant Pot techniques as the weather warms up. I’m happy to boil large pots of water in The Unlocking, but when spring starts to heat up, the calculous changes.

What I haven’t done for well over a decade is made deviled eggs. Man, I do love those. They are just awful for you. But now that I have a good technique and a kid who will eat them like crazy, it might be fun to make a batch, eat one, and feed the rest to younger bodies that are still growing.

I’ll keep you posted.