What Did You Do To That Egg?!

I well remember the first time I encountered a poached egg. I was perhaps 12 or 13 at the time, and visiting my grandmother. She asked if I’d like some bacon and eggs, to which I naturally replied that I would. Soon thereafter, she presented me with a plate containing bacon and a mysterious globby white thing.

A squarish white plate with chopped kale topped with a formless white glob sprinkled with seasoning.
Seasoned white glob OF MYSTERY on kale.

Being a shy and courteous child, I forbore to ask “where’s the egg?” but I must have made some sort of inquiry as to what “this” was, because she subsequently enlightened me: that was the egg. Due to a combination of the aforementioned courteousness and the formidable nature of my ex-military grandmother, I refrained from asking WHAT DID YOU DO TO IT?? but I certainly wondered. I also wondered why, when already frying bacon, one would not also fry the egg, but who knows – perhaps the bacon was grilled.

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The T-Rex’s Remarkable Grandchild

Grandchild being in this case a major understatement, but seriously, chickens are amazing. Amazing and amazingly weird.

Take the whole issue of eggs for example. It takes a hen about 26 hours to produce an egg. But when the hen sits on a whole batch of them – up to a dozen – they all hatch around the same time, not at 26 hour intervals for a fortnight. (Assuming a rooster was involved prior to egg-laying. Otherwise no business results and the hen gets bored after a while and wanders off.)

Not much of a view, but not bored yet…
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The Contents of a Port Flip

According to The Cocktail Key, a little pamphlet brought into this world by Herbert Jenkins Ltd, 3, Duke of York Street, London, S.W.1 (that’s the address given on the cover), the ingredients of a port flip are as follows.

1) a glass of port. (I told you this wasn’t a trick question.)
2) a dash of sugar syrup (as though port wasn’t sweet enough already).
3) the yolk of one egg.

Egg yolk-1460404

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