egg salad

Just when I think I might not be turning into my dad-- boom! Another bizarro food craving from the 1940s. As if my newfound love of mashed turnips, vanilla malts, or blue cheese was not frightening enough, my return to San Diego was marked by a fierce craving for egg salad. Let's be real about this. I mostly hate eggs. I wouldn't eat them at all until a few years ago and only then scrambled with cheese. Last year Huevos Rancheros eased me into the fried-egg-fan-club (unlike the Lisa Frank Fan Club, it does not come with stickers, only higher cholesterol.) But I still haven't ever eaten a hardboiled egg without gagging. When I see them in salad bars I feel sorry for the poor nerds who eat them while I help myself to more samosas across the way (this scenario takes place in Whole Foods, I guess).

So WHAT?! I return back a few weeks ago, I move out, I feel all turmoilish, and boom! I find myself in a coffeeshop eating a curried egg salad sandwich. It was delicious, and I ate it and read Giving An Account of Oneself and basically swooned. Fast forward to the Fourth of July. I am contemplating bringing deviled eggs, since that seems like a Martha Stewarty thing to do when you go to the hills to celebrate America. Instead our contribution was grilled peaces with honey and goat cheese FROM A GOAT THAT I MILKED-- but more on that later. Geez I love farms.

The take home message of today: what do our lovely hosts bring out but a bowl of egg salad. And then another. And another! Three types of egg salad with homemade mayo with eggs from their chickens!

My creepily religious but ultimately effective art therapy book (thanks Julie!) says that as soon as you tell the universe what you want it provides it. The examples in the book are like: Molly decided she wanted to be a painter then realized her next door neighbor gives painting lessons. Mine is "I never knew I liked egg salad and as soon as I realized that I loved it, someone made three different kinds of transcendent egg salad." I am either easy to please or have really low expectations.

Anyway, here is how to make some delicious egg salad.

3 hardboiled eggs (the key, according to Alton, is to start with the eggs in cold water, boil, then turn off the stove AT THE BOIL. Then wait ten minutes. Then run cool water over your eggs. I can attest: pretty perfect.)
2 tbs mayo
a little mustard
lots of salt and pepper
a T or so of chives or dill, fresh or dried. Don't skimp.

Mash it all together. Oh yeah. On a sandwich with refrigerator pickles? I want to take a bowl of this out behind the middle school and get it PREGNANT. I am not usually one for citational humor, but I can think of no better way to describe how I feel about this egg fucking salad. Tracy Jordan knows what it means to love a foodstuff, let me tell you that.