I hate eggs.
HATE them!
Eggs. Yuck!
My list of hates is pretty short. There are birds, and there are eggs.
The bird thing has everything to do with the time I got attacked by a crow (a story for another day). That’s understandable, right?
The egg thing requires a bit more history…
When I was in elementary school in the 1980’s, I was a HUGE professional wrestling fan. Every Saturday morning, I would wake up bright and early to watch WWF Superstars of Wrestling on TV. On the show, big time wrestlers like “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Andre the Giant, and King Kong Bundy would take on jabronis (bad wrestlers hired to lose matches) like Leaping Lanny Poffo, The Brookly Brawler, and Barry Horowitz.
My favorite part of the show was not the actual wrestling. It was the interviews. This was where the personality of the wrestlers was exposed to the audience.
Like most kids my age, I was a big fan of Hulk Hogan. In retrospect, his wrestling skills were not that great… but his interviews… those things were epic!
Hulk Hogan back in the day.
So one day, my folks took me to the video store, and I saw that there were a few tapes all about Hulk Hogan. I was very stoked that they let me check all of them out and allowed me to spend the entire day watching clips of his matches and interviews. There was one segment in particular, where Hulk Hogan showed Vince McMahon and Lord Alfred Hayes how to make “Hulkster’s Powerful Protein Shake”. All the ingredients that he threw into the blender seemed pretty normal (milk, bananas, protein powder, etc…), but to finish the shake off he added two raw eggs (shells and all). While sipping on the shake, Hulk said something like, “If you want 24 inch pythons (arms) like me, brother, all you need is your training, your prayers, your vitamins, and Hulkster’s Powerful Protein Shake!”
That gave me an idea…
I ran up to the kitchen to raid the fridge.
Milk? Check!
Banannas? Check!
Chocolate Sauce and Cream Soda (Hey! I was eight!)? Check!
Raw Eggs? Check!
I didn’t know how to use a blender, so I just started throwing all of the ingredients into a tall glass.
“What are you doing?” my older sister asked.
“Making a power shake.”
“Are those raw eggs?”
“Yup.” I threw spoon into the glass and began to stir.
“You’re gonna get sick if you drink that.”
I took my first sip. “It’s not bad,” I told her. “You want some?”
She took a sniff. “If you drink any more of that I’M gonna throw up!”
“In that case…” I put the glass back to my lips, and chugged the rest of my “shake”.
For a while after I drank the shake, I was feeling great. The kind of feeling that a kid gets when they have a new pair of shoes… You know… How they think they are instantly faster. Now that I had ingested my “power shake” I was instantly stronger. I ran around the house trying to pick up every heavy object I could. For a good ten minutes, I was Hulk Hogan.
Then…
Then things started changing. My stomach started turning and growling like crazy. I didn’t throw up, like my sister had warned. It was much worse. I was woozy for hours. I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think. The only thing I could do was curl up in a ball. It was a BAD feeling.
Ever since then, eggs and I have not been on the best of terms.
Look… I know that eggs are in a lot of products. I’ve got no problem with bread and baked goods. I’ll mack a quiche. I’ll even eat an omelet or a scramble. The problem for me is when the egg looks, or tastes, “like an egg”. Specifically raw eggs, fried eggs, poached eggs, and especially hard-boiled eggs (yuck!). Even the thought of eggs makes me sick.
There comes a point, however, in a 32-year-old man’s life when he has to grow up. I’m tired of avoiding certain foods. I’m tired of making funny faces every time someone mentions eggs in front of me. I’m tired of asking people to make sure to scramble my eggs. It’s time for me to face my fear.
Yesterday, Kara and I went to the mall together. I broke off on my own for a little bit to get her a gift (our anniversary is this Sunday). Since I don’t have a cell phone, we arranged to meet up at Starbucks at 2 o’clock. I finished my shopping around 1:30, so I had some time to kill. I peeked my head in Williams-Sonoma and found this book…
After flipping through the book and seeing some delicious pictures (and many disgusting ones), I decided to pick it up. My goal is to read through the whole thing, and eventually make all of the dishes (like in that one movie) from front to back.
Today, I had my first test…
Fried Eggs!
The most difficult part for me, was learning the difference between sunny-side up, over easy, and all the rest. I’m sure you’re probably yelling at me through the internet right now. “How could he not know what over easy means?!?!?!” You have to remember that I’ve been avoiding fried eggs my entire life. They all seem gross to me.
After reading through the fried egg section, I decided to go for over easy. Runny, but not a yellow ass yolk looking like it’s gonna blow up on you.
Here’s what I made…
Fried eggs over easy with sweet pepper piperade. One for me. One for Kara.
Piperade is a spanish style of sauted onions and peppers made with a little sugar and vinegar. Immediately, when I sat down to eat this thing, I broke open the egg to let the yolk out to mix around with the peppers. The egg was definitely rich, and went well with the sweet and tangy peppers. The egg was good, but I still don’t know why anyone would ever go out of their way to eat one.
I asked Kara what she thought, and she wants me to make it for her again, so I guess I made it right… maybe.
The next recipe sounds a little bit more up my ally: Egg, Bacon, and Brie Panini.
I’m glad I made these eggs today. Mainly, because I know that a fried egg will not kill me. It really was a test for me, but I think I made a little progress in overcoming my fear.
So maybe I can get over this whole egg thing… but birds? That’s another story.
Stay Rad,
Jeff
Stay Rad 