Scrambled Eggs: A Coming of Age Story

Breakfast is the one thing that my father can cook. He does pancakes pretty well, bacon even better, but eggs -- those are his specialty.

The first time that I ever made eggs with my father, I was four. I had likely woken up at the ripe hour of 5AM and pitter pattered my way into my parents’ bedroom to inform them that the day had in fact begun. As a child, I constantly uttered one phrase: “I do myself.” I liked to be independent. On this specific morning, like many others, my father was preparing my scrambled eggs for breakfast. Eager to be a part of the process, that phrase came spewing out of my mouth.

He told me that I could help “stir” the eggs in the pan.

Score.

I stood on one of our kitchen chairs in order to reach the hot stove. With the whisk in one hand, I immediately grabbed the handle of the cast iron pan full force with my other, not realizing that I was about to scorch the skin on my tiny palm.

And there ya have it – my earliest memory.

I like to think that it means something that my earliest memory is related to cooking given that food has become such an important part of my life. But in reality, it was likely just because the experience was traumatic and quite painful.

That being said, scrambled eggs did sort of become a symbol for how my knowledge of cooking evolved over time. Because they are such a simple dish, there are so many ways to make them your own. They were the perfect blank canvas for me as a new chef. They taught me little things like the importance of potholders, seasoning and using the right cooking fats. But they also taught me much bigger things like learning to embrace simplicity in the foods that I ate.

As a teenager, I would make eggs every morning for myself, constantly trying new combinations and usually trying way too hard to make something amazing. After countless tries at making “the perfect scrambled eggs,” I realized something. I missed my dad’s eggs. Were they plain and simple? Yes. But they were absolutely delicious.

Sure, adding a few freshly chopped chives or a little bit of cheese to my eggs could make them taste better. But what I really realized was that there is equal skill involved in creating something unique as there is in perfecting the simplicity of a dish.