the chick or the eggs?

Cosmolopsically speaking, I vote for the chicken, but for me personally, it was the eggs.

For several decades before encountering an actual chicken in the wild, I had to learn how to cope with eggs.  Swallowing them with a bite of toast got me through breakfast.  Afternoon eggs, deviled or hard boiled, weren’t so egg-like, or could be rendered edible by the extravagant application of salt.

Then, in the winter of 1978, having developed an interest in woodworking, I began making daily trips to my grandparents' house, first to refinish a delicate writing desk my grandfather had made as a young man, and then to build a cabinet for my parents.  I worked with my grandfather’s tools in his dark garage which was lined with shelves of narrow cedar boxes filled with salvaged fastenings.  A little door next to the vice opened so a long board could extend outside through the wall.


My grandparents enjoyed the return of their prodigal grandson, so long as I left each evening with the garage as orderly & clean as on the morning I first arrived.  One day, my grandmother offered to make me lunch, and when I sat down, placed before me a plate of scrambled eggs like I had never seen before, which no amount of salt or toast could have improved.


Several years later, when it was too late to ask, and remembering only that she had added some parmesan cheese, I set myself the task of recreating her eggs.  Failing repeatedly, I chanced upon an article on egg scrambling methods and, so found in my skillet one morning a passable resemblance to my culinary grail.

I make my grandmother’s eggs by adding a touch of milk to a couple eggs, which I whip energetically with a fork, to mix in air.  I cook them quickly in butter, stirring all the while so they will cook uniformly, removing them from the pan as the last runniness disappears.  If all goes well, a soft, yellow cloud of eggs graces the plate.

They may not be my grandmother’s eggs exactly, but they are as close to them, and to heaven, as I will ever be.


Coo, coo, ca choo.