Hard boiled eggs can be essential

I have always loved eating hard boiled eggs. Actually I like eggs in any form, but some recipes call specifically for hard boiled eggs. Can you imagine trying to make deviled eggs if the eggs were not hard boiled in the first place? My children liked them in their school lunches and I like to take one or two at the Chinese buffets in town. But there is one bad thing about them. The chickens don't lay them hard boiled. You have some work to do before you can eat a hard boiled egg.

The hardest part of cooking them is after you have cooked them. That's when you need to take off the pretty white/brown/whatever color shell. That job can be made easier if you have cooked them correctly. What I have heard recently is to put the eggs in a pan with enough water to nicely cover them. Then, when the water comes to a good boil, turn off the heat, put a lid on it, and wait from 5 to 10 minutes. Immediately cool off the eggs with icy water and then shake the pan containing the eggs vigorously until when you look inside the pan you can see that each egg has a large crack in its shell. The final step is to run more cold water over the eggs and the shells will drop away smoothly leaving slick white eggs for serving.

The odd thing is, after all of that trouble to make the eggs perfect, at this step many people start cutting them up or mincing the yolks. Eggs Benedict were popular at our house. Can you imagine fixing enough eggs to cream the egg whites, mince the yolks, and put it all on 10 pieces of crisp toast on 10 different plates for a special supper? At that time we didn't have a toaster. Earlier we had a four sided one that would sit over the burner of a Perfection Kerosene stove inviting you to load each side by pulling it down and placing one slice of bread in each one. After a minute or two the sides would be pulled down again and the bread changed positions. Our next step before getting a toaster like the ones we see today was to make our toast, a loaf at a time, under the broiler of our gas range. This all had to be done before all 10 of us came in for our meal

We also used the eggs for special attention in a chef salad, chopped up again into a chicken salad sandwich. And can be used for a bite of protein in a hurry up breakfast of too many sweets.

This report has been certified to be true by a panel of experts in eating breakfasts. Both members of the panel agreed that after eating 43,800 breakfasts each are qualified to give this report. We will publicize any further outcomes of this investigation which will make absolutely no difference to anyone, but will add much to the tedium of investigative reporting.

Here's egg on your face.