This morning I had the breakfast of the effete barbarian: soft-boiled eggs.

I’m pleased that I got them just right — the whites were solid, and the yolks were runny. Cooking an egg like that when you can’t SEE how done it is, that’s a real trick. That’s not the kind of seat-of-my-too-large-pants cooking I usually do. This requires an actual TIMER. I suppose I could do the spaghetti trick, and throw them against the wall to see how done they are, but I’m betting Sandra would quickly make the cleaning of the kitchen my exclusive responsibility.

Effete barbarism… see, you cut off the top of the egg with a knife, and then take a spoon and scoop the edible bits right out of the shell. If I had egg cups I’d feel more effete and less barbaric, but there’s still something primal about breaking an egg open and eating gooey stuff right out of it. I suppose it’s a little less primal for me using a spoon, and adding salt, but when the yolk spilled down the side of the eggshell and I licked it off? Hey, I felt like a ferret, or maybe a velociraptor — salt and spoon notwithstanding.

I HARD-boiled some eggs yesterday so I could have ham and egg salad. In this case “ham” is replaced by “TREET,” which is Armor’s answer to Hormel’s SPAM product. It was roughly half the cost, and they said it was supposed to taste like a Virgina Baked Ham. They can’t print lies right on their packaging, can they? Maybe they can get away with it… I have no idea what a Virginia Baked Ham is supposed to taste like, but I assume by its mention on the side of the tin that it’s supposed to taste GOOD.

The TREET did not taste good. The egg-salad was great, though. On a lark I went ahead and added chopped TREET to it, and behold! A miracle! Egg-plus-Miracle-Whip is a strong enough flavor that I couldn’t tell that a pseudo-Virginian ham-bake had occurred anywhere NEAR my bowl of fats and proteins. I guess that’s why they call it Miracle-Whip.

(Note: I know, I know. Miracle Whip has sugar in it. The total carb-count of my two-egg salad was around 7g, max. I do keep track of these things, you know.)

Well, I was on a roll, so I tried another experiment. I asked Sandra to tear off a couple of leaves of Romaine lettuce, and I spooned the Miraculous Egg-TREET Salad onto them. The effect was interesting. The flavor changed a bit… the Romaine sort of “legitimized” the whole concoction with a green crunchiness, as if to say “NOW it is a REAL SALAD.” Then there was the VISUAL effect. “See, honey? I’m eating a fancy thing-on-a-leaf, instead of spooning a bowl of yellowish slop into my cake-hole.” Amazingly, it was tasty enough that Sandra liked it too, and since I’d made more than I cared to eat myself, I gave her a leaf-full.

I bet barbarians ate off of leaves ALL THE TIME.

–Howard

I’ve tried lots of diets in my decade as an only-slightly-overweight test subject. By far the most effective have been induction-phase low-carbohydrate diets. Yes, I tried them before they were a national fad (by about two years, depending on your definition of “fad”). Yes, I’ve researched them. I’m dieting again. Click if you want to read about it.

The folks who market Ben Gay probably suffer from the same problem as the people who market Spam. When the meaning of your word changes underneath you, what do you do?

Eh, who cares? It’s not MY problem. I’ve got Ben Gay all over my back and neck right now, so obviously the folks marketing it have figured out how to overcome their little Word Problem, at least in my case. Oh, and we have Spam in the house, too, not that I’ve eaten it recently. Hormel’s doing alright, I guess.

With Ben Gay there’s a definite time and a place. “Ow, my NECK! Honey, go get the Ben Gay.” But Spam? What’s the occasion where “Let’s crack open a can of THIS stuff” is appropo?

“Honey, I’ve figured out what to feed the in-laws!”

I should keep my voice down. The lady whose family I married into is also the one who rubbed this burning ointment all over my back.

–Howard

Sandra had to run errands this morning, and left at 9:15 without having eaten breakfast. I had just come upstairs from inking, and decided to cook “elevensies” for her return. Oddly, I’d been craving tuna casserole.

Digging around in the cupboards, I located plenty of tuna, but scored a couple of similarly sized cans of salmon. The recipe goes like this.

sautee a chopped onion in 2tbsp of olive oil. Add 2 cans of salmon (out of the cans, yes, but not drained, no). Add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and 2 soup-cans of milk.

Boil.

In a 9×14 casserole dish, lay down some uncooked rotini. I used “1 package,” but based on the package notes, we’re talking about enough pasta that you’d use 3 quarts of water if you were boiling it on the stove.

Dump the boiling tuna/soup/milk/onion mixture over the noodles. Grate some cheddar on top, and then add a layer of crumbs. I used crushed Club crackers left over from New Year’s.

Bake at 325 F for 30 minutes — for at least 10 minutes the mixture should be bubbling around the edges.

Serve. If you’ve gotten the mixture of moisture-to-pasta right, you’ll be able to cut it and serve it in squares like lasagna. If not, you’ll have soup.

I was pleasantly surprised. The salmon has a much nicer flavor than tuna (when last I made this I was 10 years younger, and I used tuna), and Sandra loved it. The pleasant surprise was that when we served leftovers at dinner this evening, she STILL liked it, and the oldest two kids plowed through theirs enthusiastically. The younger two didn’t touch it, but I’m still counting this one as a win.

–Howard