Perfect Scrambled Eggs

Pepi’s perfect eggs

I had perfect scrambled eggs once. I was in my twenties and staying with a friend of my parents who lived in Birmingham, England. Pepi was a wonderful cook, but the meal I remember most vividly is those scrambled eggs. They were soft and creamy, but not runny, and cooked just enough. I don’t even recall what we had with them. Since then, I’ve scrambled thousands of eggs (when you have a diner you scramble a lot of eggs) and I have never attained perfect ones.

If good is the enemy of great, so is perfect. Great is… well, great. You go to a friend’s house for dinner and she serves you a dish so wonderful you almost cry so you beg her for the recipe. If you’re lucky she used a recipe and followed it, so she can at least hand you a guide. More likely though, if she is a decent cook she either didn’t use a recipe or adapted one and she can’t tell you exactly what she did. Chances are, regardless, you will never recreate the dish of your memory.

That dish doesn’t exist. Or it doesn’t exist anymore, there are too many variables. The wine isn’t the same, the season has changed, you have a different idea of what browned means from your friend and she forgot to mention she made a substitution because she was out of some ingredient. No matter. If you let go of the notion of making an identical replica of the dish your friend made, your iteration of that perfect meal can be great. 

Pepi showed me exactly how she made those eggs. It involved an obscene amount of butter, low heat, and several minutes of gentle stirring. Having gotten her step-by-step instructions I am still unable to recreate the magic. Maybe it was the eggs or the butter she used, or I don’t have a saucepan exactly like hers… No matter the reason, those eggs remain a singular experience. They live in my memory.

Live performance

Sometimes you go to a concert or play and things go so smoothly you barely notice anything going on around you; the music or the acting draw you in. Other times the viola is a bit sharp, an actor misses a cue, or a joke falls flat as will happen. I have been to a few shows when things went a bit off-script. To me, those are the best theatrical experiences. I got to be there for something special, I saw a show, unlike any show other people saw. It wasn’t perfect and therein lies its greatness.

Cooking is a live performance too and it’s those off-script moments that can elevate or ruin a meal, and add to the experience. You probably remember those meals more clearly than the three near-perfect ones you’ve managed. You remember those awful meatballs that tasted of ammonia and tell of that dinner over and over. It’s a much better story than the time it all went off without a hitch. 

A fool’s errand

You are probably cooking much more than you are accustomed to, pulling dusty cookbooks off the shelf, searching familiar sites for inspiration, or just winging it based on the contents of your freezer or pantry. Maybe you’re making family favorites or your grandmother’s meatloaf. They probably don’t taste exactly as you remember, and I bet they’re great!

I don’t think I’ve ever cooked a perfect meal, but I’ve made more great ones than I can recall. My brother is planning to visit in a few weeks (pandemic allowing) and has requested I make the beef stroganoff I made the last time he was here. I’m not sure how I’ll accomplish that as I can’t even remember what cut of beef I used, or which/if any recipe. I can make him stroganoff, but not that stroganoff. Fortunately, for me, he will neither notice, nor care and he will appreciate the effort of someone cooking for him.

I’ve stopped chasing those perfect scrambled eggs, that’s a fool’s errand I’m no longer willing to run. When I get eggs from the chickens my sister tends I take extra care cooking them because they deserve the attention, and I know that they will taste amazing even if they’re not Pepi’s. If I manage to cook a perfect meal, I will slowly savor it and appreciate its uniqueness. And that will be enough.