I invented a thing (with egg salad)
It started when my new coauthor, Paula Bloom, posted a video where this guy shows us how to peel hard-boiled eggs just by blowing on them:
By the way, he's lying about the baking soda being "key." Totally don't need it. It's just easier to peel (or, er, blow) eggs that are not very fresh, so choose eggs that have been sitting around in your fridge for a few days.
Anyway, I had to find an excuse to try this, so I decided to make egg salad. Egg salad and I have a bit of a checkered past. See, I loved it when I was a wee one. My dad proudly told me a story over and over and over (still does) about how he got the "secret recipe" from a deli owner one day. He used to frequent a Brooklyn deli and loved their egg salad, and kept bugging the owner about the recipe. He knew there was a secret ingredient, but the owner refused to tell him what it was, because then he knew my dad could make it at home and stop coming to the deli.
Well, finally, my dad was about to move to Long Island, and he went to the deli one last time and begged the owner to tell him the secret now, considering he couldn't drive to the deli for lunch anymore anyway. The guy whispered to him, "Pickle juice."
I loved this story in the first grade. Pickle juice in my egg salad! What a great secret ingredient! (About a tablespoon per sandwich, if you're curious.) And for some reason, I thought it would improve my social status if I revealed this secret ingredient to my classmates. However, at least one got it in her head that this was disgusting, and told everyone else in the class that it I was a freak, and it was the very first thing I can ever remember being teased about. Every time I opened my lunch box, that girl or her friends would make scrunched up faces and ask me if I had any gross foods with pickle juice today.
I think that ruined my taste for egg salad for years. But now I'm all evolved and stuff, so screw them!
With my eggs all boiled, I tried the blowing technique. It was a success. (Don't worry-- I'm not feeding these eggs to anyone but myself.) Then I turned to the fridge and... no pickles. Rats! What good is egg salad without pickle juice? No good, I tell you. I had to improvise.
So I decided to try the lime juice. And you know what? It's good. It's no pickle juice, mind you, but in a pinch, if you ever find yourself with a batch of egg salad and no jar of pickles, squirt a whole bunch of lime juice over it. Just don't tell your first grade classmates. You're welcome.
By the way, he's lying about the baking soda being "key." Totally don't need it. It's just easier to peel (or, er, blow) eggs that are not very fresh, so choose eggs that have been sitting around in your fridge for a few days.
Anyway, I had to find an excuse to try this, so I decided to make egg salad. Egg salad and I have a bit of a checkered past. See, I loved it when I was a wee one. My dad proudly told me a story over and over and over (still does) about how he got the "secret recipe" from a deli owner one day. He used to frequent a Brooklyn deli and loved their egg salad, and kept bugging the owner about the recipe. He knew there was a secret ingredient, but the owner refused to tell him what it was, because then he knew my dad could make it at home and stop coming to the deli.
Well, finally, my dad was about to move to Long Island, and he went to the deli one last time and begged the owner to tell him the secret now, considering he couldn't drive to the deli for lunch anymore anyway. The guy whispered to him, "Pickle juice."
I loved this story in the first grade. Pickle juice in my egg salad! What a great secret ingredient! (About a tablespoon per sandwich, if you're curious.) And for some reason, I thought it would improve my social status if I revealed this secret ingredient to my classmates. However, at least one got it in her head that this was disgusting, and told everyone else in the class that it I was a freak, and it was the very first thing I can ever remember being teased about. Every time I opened my lunch box, that girl or her friends would make scrunched up faces and ask me if I had any gross foods with pickle juice today.
I think that ruined my taste for egg salad for years. But now I'm all evolved and stuff, so screw them!
With my eggs all boiled, I tried the blowing technique. It was a success. (Don't worry-- I'm not feeding these eggs to anyone but myself.) Then I turned to the fridge and... no pickles. Rats! What good is egg salad without pickle juice? No good, I tell you. I had to improvise.
So I decided to try the lime juice. And you know what? It's good. It's no pickle juice, mind you, but in a pinch, if you ever find yourself with a batch of egg salad and no jar of pickles, squirt a whole bunch of lime juice over it. Just don't tell your first grade classmates. You're welcome.
