The Good Workman

Posted by Deborah Courtnell

     Ok, so here's the thing and it involves eggs.

     I've just gone downstairs where I happened to see Shedley which is not such a great surprise as he lives here. With me. We live here together. Anyhow, I went downstairs and I saw him and I said:

     'Oh hi Shedley so how was your lunch?'

     'Great,' said Shedley.

     Then he paused for a second and cleared his throat. Which meant he was on the verge of saying of something else but had opted to pause briefly and fully reassure himself that he would not regret saying whatever he was going to say next.

     'Your brother made a great lunch. Actually, he's got rather a good technique for frying eggs.'

     My younger brother, Can-Do, is staying with us.

     Can-Do designed and built Shedley's Shed which I call the Man-Shed because it's where Shedley goes and does manly things like stare thoughtfully out of the window or rearrange his hammers and screwdrivers.

     Strictly speaking, Shedley and Can-Do designed and built the Man-Shed together, but Can-Do did a teensy-weensy bit-a-lot more of the work than Shedley.
   
     An Esteemed Villager likes Shedley's shed so much he's hired Can-Do to build him a 'shed-office' in his garden.

     'Right,' I said, in a neutral, casual manner. 'A good technique?' I tried to sound non-threatening.

     There are two things about this:

     Thing number one is that Shedley prefers his eggs fried. Me, I like a fried egg but then I'll eat eggs any way you care to serve them, scrambled, poached, boiled, omletted, souffléed because I just adore eggs. And because I’m a very flexible person.

     But hey, if it makes Shedley happy then I'm happy to fry them when I'm making eggs for both of us.

     Even though I know they are approximately one million times more fattening and likely to fur up your arteries and kill you if you cook them that way. Because of all the oil.

     Thing number two is that our eggs are bantam eggs and they're small which makes them much harder to fry. Much, much, much harder to fry. And the frying pan is old and has lost its non-stick stickiness. And the spatulas are simply all the wrong shape.

     Result? Every time I cook fried eggs they start off fine but then deteriorate fast into looking like something that fell on the floor, got stepped in and smeared about a bit and only then scooped up and served.

     They taste great but pretty they are not.

     Unlike Can-Do's fried eggs which were bantam eggs cooked in the same pan on the same stove with the same spatula but, whaddya know, they came out picture perfect.

     According to Shedley who evidently interviewed Can-Do on his fried egg  technique, Can-Do starts with the heat low and then turns it up just at the end.

     Oh yes and then there’s the oil. Can-Do likes to use a lot more oil. Lots and lots  more oil.

     So now I know.

22.04.2013

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