Egg Eigenzeit OR Breakfast is Served

If you want to fall outside of the construct of linear time, poach eggs. Not every morning for breakfast – no the magic is too delicate for something so circadian – but at least once a month. Never put it on your calendar, it must be a surprise, something that unfolds from a lazy morning into a languid afternoon. It helps if your to do list is very long but you can’t remember, just at that moment, anything that is on it.

In my household I am the master of the poached egg, and more importantly, how to poach seven eggs all at the proper consistency of yolk for each breakfaster of the house.

In order of preferred yolk hardness:

The Oldest Kid who likes them over hard [this is barbarism but we love him, and love is getting to eat eggs how you enjoy them without critique]. He will eat them any way they are made for him without complaint, but when they are perfect, that is how he knows I honor who he is.

Myself, who prefers a yolk just south of what the Japanese would call “jammy,” also know as the perfect ramen yolk. I need a properly set marmalade, that coheres to itself but is still essentially liquid though not running. Not surprisingly, the most difficult to achieve well and consistently.

The Youngest Kid who wants to watch the yolk spill over the toast, but not so exhaustively as to coat the plate because she will not sop it up and we mustn’t waste a drop. A reluctant breakfaster on a good day, she will only eat one, so I do not make her two because there is no one at our table to eat a sad, neglected, congealing egg.

And last but never least, the Handsome Gentleman, who wants a perfectly firm albumen [with no lingering raw bits] that has formed a bubble around a nearly liquid yolk, wet enough to soak through the toast and onto the plate below. His plate will be the cleanest, using every morsel of toast to absorb the last molecule of yolk.

The pan holds 5 eggs comfortably – four around a centered fifth – but to continuously cook seven requires precise focus.

If I am making breakfast then it is quite late indeed, coffee-withdrawal headaches are looming, even the Youngest Kid is hungry, and malingering in the kitchen with a semi-feral air. I enjoy my leisure, normally it is Handsome Gentleman whipping the cream and flipping the cakes, and I am in bed reading essays and articles. But if I am in the kitchen it was desperately needed, more so even than coffee and calories, and so I understand the weight of my responsibility.

But first coffee.

I fill the kettle, grind the beans, pour the grounds into the French press.

I put the water in the pan, covering it with the glass lids, turning it to high heat and mix up any toppings for the toast [avocado with a hint of garlic today] as the water heats. And when the water is just simmering, I remove the pan’s lid and drop in the Oldest Kid’s two eggs, turning the water down to medium heat. I remove the cover from the butter and stage the slices of toast on their plates. I ensure the cream is waiting in the mugs as the coffee steeps in the French press. Everything is ready to go for the final sprint.

I drop in the Youngest Kid’s egg and press the toaster lever on one slice.

This is the first delicate part. As the toast pops, I drop in the two more slices for the Oldest Kid, and spread butter then avocado on the Youngest Kid’s toast. A full period of toasting is roughly equivalent to a runny egg, but I need a not quite runny egg, how much more time for not quite runny? Well, as a good animal husband knows: every egg is different even if they are the same size on the outside, what is going in inside is a different matter. The toast is ready for the Youngest Kid’s egg, but is the egg ready? I lift it gently out of the water bath – infinitesimally more time is needed – but not enough time to butter and spread the Oldest Kid’s toast. How do I know? I cannot tell you, it is in the give of the white that wraps around the yolk, the bounce of the yolk against the white. I linger over the pan. Now, now is the time.

Out comes the Youngest Kid’s egg, sitting firmly on its toast. But because of the density of that egg, the Oldest Kid’s eggs are in danger of being too firm – yes it is possible to over do an over hard yolk. Butter and spread, test the yolks, yes, they are ready. Plate. In go two more eggs, will they be mine or Handsome Gentleman’s, we don’t yet know, it all depends on the eggs themselves.

“Eggs,” I say to the kids and they rise from the table to collect their plates. “Forks,” I say as a reminder, and absently, “are you hydrating?”

Down does the lever on the toaster – Handsome Gentleman’s toast now inside – and I turn the knob down from 4 to 3, because so much toasting makes each subsequent toast slice darker and no one enjoys burnt toast. In goes the last set of two eggs. I watch all four simmering, hearing the kids eating and bickering, and listen for the pop of the toaster. Out comes the toast, butter and spread. Now I test. Normally, the first set of two is too hard for Handsome Gentleman and too soft for me, the second set too soft for either of us, even the white is not hard enough. Each egg is at a slightly different level of done-ness. I plan how I will take them out. The water has cooled slightly, the eggs take longer, oftentimes I have also saved the largest eggs as and the timing becomes dicey. Will I be able to get the last toasts buttered and spread to time it properly with the yolks? There is always a window at this precise point where I could ensure that my eggs are perfect, but if I do, I risk getting Handsome Gentleman yolks that don’t run, and we will both be sorely disappointed. If I safeguard his egg quality, mine might be too hard. But the choice is an easy one.

I determine that two eggs are right for Handsome Gentleman and I plate them, but I must hurry because my toasts will pop at any second. Pop. Butter and spread. I plate my eggs and turn off the burner. Then I add the sriracha flourish to his eggs, and pour the coffee.

The kids are done with their eggs and have fled. Dishes somehow have made it to the sink.

I put Handsome Gentleman’s plate on his breakfast tray with his coffee, flatware and salt shaker and deliver them to the bedroom. I put my plate and coffee on the table, breaking my yolks to check. Oh so close! Slightly too much run on one, the perfect jam on the other. One out of two ain’t bad.

“How are your yolks?” I call to him through the hall. He doesn’t answer right away and I walk into the bedroom, see him put down the salt shaker and watch him open them up. They gush over the toast, pooling in places on the avocado spread. I am victorious.

Triumphant, I eat my almost perfect egg first, then my second perfect egg last. Drinking my coffee in the silence of the empty dining room.

I cannot tell you how long this takes. I poach my eggs by sound and feel and the trust of the toaster more than anything else. Are there other ways to do this? Yes. I could make all the toasts at once [I have a toaster oven capable of making 12 slices], lining them up on their plates and dropping the eggs on them as they are perfectly set, but the toasts would be cold, the butter firming again. And that is not how you show your family that you love them, it is not how you dissolve your ego and become one the universe. Sure, other ways would still be breakfast, and maybe no one else would really know the difference, but I would. I would have violated the order of the time inherent to the process itself.

And that is not how one poaches an egg.