Saturday, September 3, 2011.
Scrambled Eggs. Enter Lee. Ham Sandwich.
An article a few weeks ago sparked my interest in scrambled eggs. It began with James Beard's approach. He believed there was much more of an art to scrambled eggs than is widely supposed. I know that from primary sources: I had lunch with Beard once in the 1970s, and he went on about scrambled eggs for almost as long as it would take to cook them.
Which is longer than most people give to scrambled eggs. Beard says that they should be whisked constantly in a bowl set over barely simmering water, and that the eggs should never get hotter than 140 degrees. That's why they take so long: for the eggs to set at that temperature while being whisked.
The author of the article at hand says there's an easier way. You still use the double-boiler approach, and you still whisk a lot. But you crank up the heat a bit, and when you get the feeling that the eggs are getting a little too hot, you throw in a few chips of frozen butter. That cools them down, as well as adds butter--a good thing.
I tried the technique this morning. I can't claim to have it down perfectly yet, but I know I will after a few more iterations. This indeed is the way to make scrambled eggs. They were silky and delicious.
One other touch I will add next time is something I learned from Gloria, the cook at the Courtyard Café: fold a little sour cream into the eggs.
Tropical Storm Lee gave us rain all day, and at time it got heavy. I kept my eye on its movements all day, and saw it drift to the west and north very slowly. Not good. That put most of the rain--if not the wind--right over us. Despite that, the water never came close to filling the ditches around us, let alone cover the dead-end road we live on.
The big problem at our house after Katrina was a lack of water for drinking, cleaning, and flushing. This time, I filled the tub in my bathroom. I already had fifteen gallons of potable water stored in milk jugs. All this adds up to "dweeb" in Mary Ann's eyes. If we ever see a counselor (doubtful; she'd never decide on which one to go to), I will note that one of the major differences between us is that she doesn't believe in buffers. If having a spare tire cost extra on a car, she wouldn't have one.
I went to the grocery store, not for Vienna sausages or batteries, but for something to eat tonight, should we be trapped anyway. I came home with a half-pound of Chisesi ham and a pound-and-a-half fillet of beautiful Scottish salmon. (And dog and cat food, of course.)
We couldn't work up the motivation to prepare the meal that the salmon deserved, so Mary Ann harvested her leftover hoard and I made a ham sandwich with my standard fifteen-grain bread. It was not quite as good as this morning's scrambled eggs, and not nearly as worthy of writing about.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
