I fried an egg.
by Will
Two days ago, I fried an egg for breakfast, put it on two pieces of wheat bread, and ate it. I haven’t thought too hard, but I’m pretty sure this is the first non-cereal breakfast I have ever prepared myself. I am 35 years old.
I resent cooking the way all of our parents resent computers. It’s not that I dispute its value as a skill, but I don’t like doing it because I am bad at it. And because I’m bad at it, I never want to learn enough to become un-bad at it. Normally, I don’t like admitting when I fall into classic “man-woman” behavior (“Women be shopping!”) but this is a relevant anecdote: Eliza was over last week and talked me through searing (or something) a piece of salmon.
Her: “Put some butter in a pan.”
Me: “How much butter and which pan?”
Her: (holding fingers apart) “This much.” (pointing) “Your only pan.”
Me: (wanting an exact number) “How much is that?”
Her: (doing it herself) “That much.”
And I realized that dealing with me in the kitchen is like what I feel like talking people through with computer problems.
Me, on phone with client: “Close your web browser.”
Client: “How?”
Me: “You see how your web browser is a rectangle, and there’s an X in the upper right hand corner. Click that X.”
Client: “Why didn’t you just say that?”
I have always felt those people HATED their computers, and that if they just LIKED them a bit more, it would all be so much easier. But I realize now that to them, it’s not hate. It’s disinterest and an discomfort with being completely at sea. They would order all their computer service to-go if they could.
Many times in my life, I’ve been willing to put myself out of my comfort zone and learn despite the awkwardness of sucking: traveling through Europe, moving to NYC, learning improv comedy, learning computer programming, trying new types of clothes, exploring new types of music, approaching near-strangers at parties where I know no one.
But with cooking, never. Sometimes I think it’s because I don’t care enough about food to even know what I like and don’t like. Or it’s the time: I invariably run from my day job to some sort of comedy nonsene, not getting home until 10:30 at least, at which point cooking will always lose when it’s a choice between spending an preparing a bland salmon and getting sticky chicken and broccoli in my hands in 10 minutes. Or something more personal and powerful? I sometimes wonder if it’s because my mom died when I was 16, and I’m waiting for her to come back and teach me how. Then again, it wasn’t like I had any interest in learning when I was 16, either.
Whatever the reason, I don’t have the foggiest notion of even the most basic cooking tasks.
But I’ve been trying to write every morning. And I’m starving, right away upon awakening. And if I go to a deli, my momentum of writing is broken.
So two days ago at 7:15am, I lumbered over to my skillet. I turned the flame on high, and rubbed about four Scrabble tiles worth of butter along the bottom. After two minutes, I could feel the heat coming off of the pan. I cracked an egg and spilled its contents in the pan. Because my apartment is badly sloped, everything pooled to the side in a thick pool, and that’s normally where I’d quit. But instead I tilted the pan and held it so everything was even, then turned the flame down as low as it would go. In two more minutes, the egg started to harden, resembling a novelty fried egg that you’d leave on someone’s desk or something. I flipped it, and laid on some pre-sliced cheddar cheese, whose edges softened into the whiteness until it looked like a patch in a quilt. I scooped everything out onto a piece of wheat bread and gobbled it like a rude child. Twas a bit rubbery in spots, runny in others. But edible! Decent, even. And fast. Including rinsing the pan so the butter wouldn’t cake, the whole thing took about 15 minutes.
I guess that wasn’t so hard.
Comments
maybe it’s because i also can’t cook and trying seems so hard, or maybe it was the line “and I’m waiting for her to come back and teach me how,” but this entry made me cry. in a good way.
mike is really great at cooking but when i do that thing where i say “put in a little butter” he’ll be like “1 tsp? 1 tblsp?” and on and on and on until i just take a little bit and flick it in there. kim is the same way. she claims it’s a “virgo thing”. she also can’t cook and has waited until almost 30 to learn. are you a virgo? perhaps i figured it all out!
(mike went from not ever having cooked anything, to making a chocolate fudge cake from scratch where he had to sift out the cocoa and flour and use a spring loaded pan- that could be you by next week!)
I don’t know if you remember this but that was not your first egg.
I taught you how to make scrambled eggs up in Ithaca 2 years ago. Later that day you told Chong-Lim, “I made eggs!” and she looked at you like you were crazy until I told her it was your first egg.
I wish you were a chick, because I would post this:
“The morning after pill cooks eggs.”
I guess I could still post it, but it is not as fun.
I like to make fun of girls.
Mitch — you’re right. I remember that now. I had feeling there must have been times before. Maybe I will perpetually think each egg I cook is the first egg. Like Memento, but lame.
Shannon, you are going to Girl Hell.
Yeah, Fred is cooking illiterate too. The other night I cooked dinner while he set up our new G5, which I had no idea how to do nor any interest in doing. It was so gender defined that I almost went out and bought myself a new hat with the grocery money.
I very much enjoy cooking. Love it. I am not necessarily that great at it, though, but on occasion I’ll do well. I was able to whip up a full t-giving assortment (deep fried turkey, stuffing and an apple-berry cobbler… all from scratch… in Brooklyn, no less) this past year, which I was happy to accomplish. I ended up making another cobbler for Ptolemy a few days later. Oh, cobbler! Such a great word to say.
I’ve been able to make (marinated and broiled) Korean Beef Shortribs a few times (aka “Kalbi”). I’ll make some for you Will. You bring the fried eggs, though.
-Terry
I enjoy cooking the way I enjoy doing my laundry. It makes me feel self-sufficient. But I don’t like other people eating stuff I’ve made, because that’s too much trouble.
Will, you should try using olive oil instead of butter. It’s much healthier.
You made French toast fopr me and Jen in 1995 when you were living on Cape Cod.
Congratulations!
A fried egg is harder than scrambled, so no matter what mitch says, it’s still a milestone.
but i like the idea of Memento with eggs.
I am so bad at cooking. So bad. Once I made chili and got distracted by TV so it burned and tasted like cigarettes. H called it “Marlboro Chili.” Then another time I made an apple pie (why do I think I’m a 50 year old souther woman?) and I used a detergent scoop to measure everything. I don’t know, man. I just don’t know!