Tonight, because of my all-day shopping excursion and of his studio visit, I ended up not making dinner. I already ate a little plate of snacks (OK, OK: Earl’s french fries, with gravy) at West Ed. So I’ll make spaghetti carbonara tomorrow. Tonight I had just a green salad with a vinaigrette of rice vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, and a grating of fresh pepper. For a protein, I boiled an egg.
A perfectly boiled egg is wonderful. As a kid, I loved boiled eggs but for some reason my mom never got the hang of it: either the shell would stick to the whites and not peel smoothly, or the yolk would turn green. The answer, I found, was in The Joy of Cooking. When I was a teenager, I read it cover to cover and laughed when I came to a recipe for boiled egg. Who needs a recipe for that?
Just goes to show, you don’t know as much as you think you do. It’s not just a matter of throwing an egg into a pot and boiling the water. A simple trick turns out a perfect egg: start with the eggs in cold water, bring to a boil. Time it according to how you want it done: 2-3 minutes for soft, 5 minutes for hard-boiled. Then turn the heat down to low for 10 minutes, then plunge them into cold water.
The eggs peel like a dream, and the yolks are sunny yellow. Tonight I had them with only a bit of salt, and they’re perfect.