The Art of Breakfasting
& the worlds best bad scrambled eggs
My great-grandmother Ruth, lived to be almost 102 years old, which meant that she was a fixture of my life until I myself was almost 22. She was a fixture of the lives of all who met and knew her because she was a fixture period. She loved men, crunchy Cheetos, dancing and dogs. She kept bowls of Swedish Fish or gumdrops on the piano, never owned a pair of blue jeans, had her blonde hair styled once a week, and, in between, meticulously pinned it up before bed to keep the curls in. She did not need a mirror to do this. I remember sitting in her room watching her magenta tipped fingers move deftly as she twirled a lock, held it in place against her head, and with a bobby pin wedged open between her teeth, secured it. The art of pinning up one’s curls every night will be a lost art in short order if it’s not already.
In the winter she lived in a fairytale house in on Nebraska Avenue and in the summer a ‘cottage’ on Bellevue. When she moved from one abode to the other, the dogs (during my entire childhood and adolescence, no less than two long haired dachshunds at a time) went with her. Her other constant companion was Maria. Maria worked for my great-grandmother for something like 60 years, over the course of which, her Spanish accent grew progressively stronger. As my gaggle of first cousins grew up, she fed us many delicious things, and the more you ate, the more she loved you. At least, until we were old enough for her to start telling us we were getting fat.
Of all the meals Maria made, it is her breakfast that I think of most often. When many of us were in the house, it was served on a rotating basis. The breakfast table, which in both houses stood sweetly in a warm, sunny room, wasn’t big enough for our crowd. All you had to do upon emerging from your slumber was stroll back into Maria’s kitchen and say, good morning, may I pleas have some eggs and bacon? Her affirmative signal would follow, also telepathing her desire for you to get out of the kitchen while she was cooking, and so you did. Then at the breakfast table, you sat if there was a seat and waited five to fifteen minutes for your breakfast to come out, depending on the bacon. You could eat a piece of toast, or some fruit while you waited. Once it was out, someone would give you their seat if you didn’t already have one. The eggs on the blue flowered plate placed in front of you would be the world’s best bad scrambled eggs.
As eggs go generally, my preferred method of preparation has never been scrambled. That’s not to say I don’t like them scrambled. I am a lover of eggs regardless of preparation—if they’re eggs, I’ll eat them. I grew up eating scrambled eggs at home where my mom would cut up Zabar’s country ham and add shredded cheddar cheese. I’ve been to Buvette and eaten their fluffy, milk-steamer eggs. I’ll gladly eat the French, constant stirring, consistency of porridge, scrambled eggs that scrambled egg snobs so favor.
However, due to the ease with which scrambled eggs become dry, the patience required to make them not dry, and everyone’s insistence that you must whisk for five minutes straight, no ten, you must add milk, no you must not, you must start with a cold pan, no you must not, I haven’t historically made scrambled eggs for myself. In college and immediately after, my egg fixation was a simple fried egg on buttered toast. Add cheese or pesto or a sausage patty underneath. Following that, I moved on to a medium boiled egg, jammy yolk, whatever you want to call it. Top that with everything bagel seasoning and cayenne pepper. From there, I backed into what I really wanted all along—one of the most advanced egg preparations, not for the faint of heart—the soft-boiled egg. As a child my grandmother (on the other side) would soft boil me two eggs, scoop them out of their shells into a bowl and serve them to me like a soup with toast soldiers. She would have the kitchen do this when she took me out for breakfast at Balthazar.
I only say all this to get to the point, which is that I’m currently fixated on Maria’s best bad scrambled eggs, which I discovered how to recreate somewhat by accident when I was making a fried egg, broke the yolk and decided to quickly scramble in-pan. I don’t think anyone—and certainly not any trained food professional—would ever tell you to make scrambled eggs like this except for me, but what can I say, the eggs transport me. I could say more, I could even cite Proust! I could say that I catch myself moaning when I eat them or that I made myself cry at my desk looking for just one picture of a plate of what would be to any outside observer a most ordinary looking breakfast. A picture that, of course, I never thought to take! But also, I remind myself, one I do not need. I eat my eggs, and I am there.
Maria’s Scrambled Eggs:
Butter
2 Eggs
Salt
Pepper
Put a nonstick pan (sorry I know, I know, but you really do need one for this) over heat—just high enough to melt a pad butter without really getting the pan hot.
Crack 2 eggs directly into the pan, break both yolks with the edge of a spatula (ideally the flexible silicone kind), and mix the eggs (again with the edge of the spatula) until the yolk is fairly evenly distributed but NOT so long/hard that the yolk and whites are fully incorporated. It is important that the pan is not too hot because you don’t want the eggs solidifying before they’re mixed.
Turn the heat up a little and let the eggs begin to cook along the bottom.
Start scraping in a back and forth motion. Don't move the eggs in a circle, this would be detrimental to your textural goals.
Discover rhythm. Let the eggs speak to you. Smell the eggs. Let them sit for a moment to solidify, but do not let them brown even the tiniest bit. If you’re paying attention and communing with your eggs, you will smell it at once if they begin to brown.
Ideally, you have scraped the eggs back and forth in the pan in such a way that they are basically fully cooked but not even about to become dry. Some of the unincorporated spots of egg white should still be, for lack of a better word, jiggly, but nothing should be transparent. I realize that this is where I will lose most of you, but I won’t apologize, either for the use of the word jiggly or for openly admitting that I like my eggs this way.
Now gather them into a little pile in the center of the pan and let the bottom cook for a moment so that the eggs are connected at the base. This is important because they should be scooped or slid out of the pan onto your plate in. one. piece. Using the side of your fork to cut each bite of egg off the mass is important to the experience of eating them.
Before adding salt and pepper, reserve some eggs on a side plate for the dogs. This must then be delicately hand fed to them in small bits between your perfectly manicured pointer finger and thumb. Depending on how many dogs you have and how much breakfast they have come to expect, you may want to start with 3 eggs instead of 2.
Best served with:
2 bowls of fresh fruit. Half a grapefruit, sliced peaches or mango, raspberries, blackberries, maybe even a kiwi. Nothing too obvious. I never partook in this part of breakfast since I famously didn’t eat fruits or vegetables until I was 25, but it feels important, particularly if you are trying to live to be 102.
1-4 pieces of Pepperidge Farm cinnamon raisin swirl toast buttered (I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter should also be made available). If you’re lucky, there may even be some cinnamon swirl bread without the raisins. If not, suck it up and eat the raisins. Quantity consumed depends on how many pieces you can eat before the eggs and bacon are ready. You will also need one piece of normal wheat toast with only a little bit of butter (not ICBINB) to feed to the dogs.
2-5 pieces of crispy bacon. Maria bakes it in the oven. Nothing thick cut and nothing smoked or applewood or maple or artisanal (God forbid). It should be so crispy that it turns to dust when you put it in your mouth. Quantity consumed depends on how much Maria decides to give you. You can ask for more. Reserve one piece and break it into small pieces for the dogs.
Best served on tableware that delights you. You’re the one eating breakfast off of it, it should delight you—just pleaseeee no plain-ass white plates, I beg of you.
Plates:
Bowls:
Accoutrements:
So stunning. As someone who was there, you capture it perfectly.
Too bad I can’t post a photo! I have some of the plates.