The first time I tasted eggs, I must have hated them.
There are childhood photos of me slumped before a plate of scrambled eggs that I was refusing to eat. I hated the smell. I hated the texture. I hate the look of uncooked egg white. I didn't learn to appreciate eggs until I ate a stuffed egg, which was probably around age 9.. Why I chose to eat a stuffed egg, remains a mystery given my antagonistic relationship with eggs. It was probably the novelty. My mother called them deviled eggs. I find stuffed eggs visually appealing, and still think of it as a fun looking food, almost humorous. How can one not be happy looking at the cheery yellow fluffed yolk sitting in its own bowl of egg white? After eating stuffed eggs I came to realize I loved the yolk, but not so much the rubbery white.

My mother did not know how to fry an egg. She cooked them fast and a heat that was too high.She often served them with the whites undercooked and the fried edges were like plastic. Yuck. It was in college when I started going to diners with a boyfriend that I learned to love fried eggs, served with bacon and home fries and whole wheat toast, with a cup of coffee, please and thank you very much.It was cheap nutritious food.

There is a fun restaurant here in Portland called the East Ender that serves a trio of Deviled eggs as an appetizer. These eggs are served with shaved venison sausage, or mustard whipped into the yolk or sweet pickle or tiny cubes of salami. The toppings are entirely the chef's whim. I find these hard to share. These eggs are a really great snack with a beer.

I recently read a book called "An Everlasting Meal" by Tamar Adler, which challenged me into eating more of the food in my home and wasting less. The premise of the book is that delicious meals can be made by exercising frugality and utilizing and transforming all parts of our food like the peels, the bones, skin and left overs into delicious , nutritios meals. I find myself eating more eggs as a result. I recently made myself a meal of a fried egg served over leftover asparagus.

For breakfast this morning I made one of my favorite meals. I fry diced shallor and tiny cubes of pancetta in olive olive. If I have chorizo I will use that instead. I removed this from the oil when the bits are all crispy and delicious, that point when the pancetta still has a little chew and the shallots are sweet. After removing these ingredients I add a dollop more olive oil and gently crack into the hot oil an egg. I then spoon the hot oil over the egg, constantly bathing it until the whites are tender but cooked and the yolk develops an opague sheen. The egg yolk is still runny but under an opal lid. I then transfer the egg to a plate and re-add the shallot and pancetta and stir in a Spanish smoked paprika. I stir this until everything is imbued with a ruby tint. I then spoon this back over the egg and sprinkle on some smoked sea salt and serve with toast cut into strips for dipping or slices of baugette if I have it. This meal takes only minutes and truly satisfies me.