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A perfect three-minute egg | page 1, 2
I juggled the needs of my older son with those of my tiny new baby in his plastic incubator bubble. While kicking the soccer ball with my rambunctious preschooler, I felt I was neglecting the fragile newborn still in the hospital. During the hours I spent cradling Alex's doll-sized translucent body against my chest, I recalled the wistful look on his older brother's face. Even the coldest mother-in-law would have forgiven me if our family diet had consisted of Chinese takeout and pizza during the period that I wore a path between home and hospital. Also Today Melissa Pasanen's Egg Salad Ode to "Joy" But I needed to cook. I dug out my bursting file of recipes -- torn, cut and copied. In the face of my new culinary exuberance, my husband finally stopped teasing me about the boxes of cookbooks and old Gourmet magazines we had shipped across the country three times. I made meals that I had never cooked before. I dared to use new ingredients and flavors I had previously disliked: licorice-scented fennel, yellow and red peppers, alarming amounts of chili powder, woody lemon grass, pungent fish sauce and sweet dusky cardamom. The garbage disposal, I reasoned, could always grind away any failed experiments. New recipes distracted me; preparing old favorites provided refuge. The morning a nurse reported that Alex had lost weight two days in a row, I made creamy macaroni and cheese. Life might spin out of control but I could still make a white sauce. Ounce by ounce, his weight crept up. When it hit a hefty 4-and-a-half pounds, we brought Alex home and celebrated with a chunky ratatouille of late summer eggplant and tomatoes from the garden. Finally, I relaxed. I even made an occasional bowl of egg salad for dinner, seasoned with Dijon mustard and finely chopped dill pickle -- best when eaten by the spoonful like I did as a child. In a quilt of soothing food memories, my ultimate comfort food has always been the egg. When I was sick, my mother cracked soft-boiled eggs into a bowl of buttered toast pieces, which became richly saturated with the yolk. Now, on the evenings when my two boys throw ketchup-soaked fish sticks at each other during the evening witching hour, I sometimes slip a couple of eggs in to boil. The problem is that they come out right only half the time. It's a delicate balance. I can't eat a soft-boiled egg that is too soft because a runny white makes me gag. But if it's overcooked, the yolk remains stubbornly distinct from the toast. Because I only cook soft-boiled eggs when I'm on the edge, my failure to make them right can send me over. If I examined my successes and failures scientifically, I think I could develop the perfect method. But, as I learned in the hospital, sometimes even science doesn't have the answer. About half of all premature labor has no obvious medical explanation and responds to no treatment. An egg is not a mass-produced microwave dinner. Each one is unique, born of nature not machinery, and nurturing one successfully requires as much good fortune as science.
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