This morning, while spooning gooey, soft-boiled egg-guts into my maw, Patches (the 22-month-old) began begging for “nummy egg.” I gave him a bite or two, but this three-egg breakfast was MINE, and he’d already been fed, so I didn’t give him nearly as much as he wanted.

I drop my shells into a bowl as a finish scooping them out. There’s a good 2/3 of the eggshell still intact when I do. So picture those shells.

I finish my last egg, push the bowl away, and begin working on a little bit of sausage. I look up to see Patches desperately licking out the inside of one of the shells, and making slurping noises while he was doing it.

What can I say? My barbarism has been outdone by the animal instincts of my toddler son.

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