Food, Computers, Books

Obviously my life revolves around food. And monitors and keyboards. And books. It occurs to me that in this way, my life hasn't changed as much as I imagined it might. I certainly am a creature of habit. And of appetities.

And I can never tell where inspiration for words will come from. This morning it came from my skillet. I have never been a great cook, I will be the first to admit, but I've always enjoyed cooking when it's been thrust upon me. And living alone has encouraged me to cook more, even if only for myself. And doing so, I've determined that I have a real talent for cooking. I'm getting really good at it, see. So I've decided to share my skills with the world. I will start adding some of my favorite recipes to this blog. Don't look for them every time - great work takes time to mature and of course I'm picky so I'll only present the best and most useful ones for your enjoyment. I should add that my recipes will be of most interest and use to people like me, in my sort of situation: a bachelor male living mostly by myself. So, without further ado, here is my first contribution.

Scrambled Eggs
This one is easy enough to get you started, in case you are a single male, say a young man just out on your own, or suddenly divorced (through no fault of your own, I'm sure), or you've just gotten out of prison and you can't find a roommate. Just follow these simple directions:

1. Put two or three eggs in a pan.
2. Plan to cook them over-easy (you know about that: it's what the cooks at Denny's do all the time. You may know one of them actually, as many of them probably got out of jail about the time you did).
3. Forget to grease the pan.
4. Flip the eggs.

The result: perfect scrambled eggs.

Of course, this raises a new question: how to get the residue of the eggs out of the pan, since you probably scooped up as much of the eggs as you could and sat down and ate them, forgetting to turn off the heat under the skillet so now they're stuck on there like tar on rice-paper. There are a couple of things you can do that are pretty easy:

1. Wait for a hail storm. Put your pan out in the yard and let the hail clean it. This has the additional advantage that the rain that usually follows the hail will help clean out what's left. If there's no rain, you may be able to count on a neighborhood dog coming along and licking it clean.
2. If you're lucky enough to be living in a house with a clothes dryer (sorry all you jailbirds, I know how unlikely this is), then just place the pan, along with a good hefty shovelful of sand, in the dryer. Turn it on and let it work for, oh, maybe an hour or so. Note: this works best with skillets with steel or wood handles. Plastic, not so good.
   

That's it. Next time: the easy way to make Bird's Nest Soup.