One rec, and some rambling about reading and ... eggs.

[derien]

Must rec smokingthings' Mike/Psmith slash over on indeedsir!  Good work, I think. 

Just finished "Northanger Abby."  I guess I should have already read all of Jane Austen's writings - I seem a bit behind my age (I guess it would be politically incorrect of me to call myself developmentally retarded) - but I have to say I'm glad I am, because there's so much joy left for me yet to experience.  But I'm not going to jump straight into another Austen; I should read this book eor had loaned to him by a co-worker ("The Kite Runner,"  Khaled Hosseini) first, and then I suppose I should get through another of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books.  I'm not sure why I found the first Mars book such slow going - I remember reading "At The Earth's Core" and "Pellucidar" when I was a kid and liking them a lot.  Either I'm more discriminating now or perhaps he'd become a better writer in the five years between the publication of "A Princess of Mars" and "At The Earth's Core." 

Oh my - to the lovely aroma of the garbage waiting to go out I have now added the smell of overdone eggs.  I set them to boil and didn't at all forget about them... but I guess they must have been boiling for an hour or so while I finished the book and started this entry.  I happily listened to their bubbling away without thinking about it at all.  They didn't boil dry and pop - a stunt I have managed to pull in the past, and probably since I've had this journal - but they did crack and leak bits of egg into the water.  (Although since the egg obviously cooked in the water, perhaps that happened long before the water level got down past the top of the eggs?)  Reason #452 why I am a dork: Completely unaware of the passage of time. 

Comments

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

heyyy. I've had eggs explode in my kettle on me too! Well, except for the 'too' part, because I don't suppose you cook eggs in your kettle. (I do because I don't really have anything else to cook them with, and it's faster than dunking them in hot water and hoping for the best. But then the eggs explode, and it's kind of gross inside the kettle for a while.)

I'm rotten at cooking, because I can't do the passage of time thing either. alas. :(

[derien.livejournal.com]

hee! Thank you for making me feel like not such a lonely idiot! :)

But then the eggs explode, and it's kind of gross inside the kettle for a while.

The 'for a while' part makes it sound like you don't clean the kettle...?

So far my process of elimination-through-doing-all-the-wrong-things with boiling eggs has revealed the following to me:

Start with eggs which are not fresh (they'll peel better, after they're done if they're a little aged).

Start with cold water and let the eggs and the water heat together, on a medium heat (stops the eggs cracking).

Put a LOT of water in, so that if I forget they have some time for me to remember.

Boil them for, um... a while. But not until the water boils away.

Immediately replace the warm water with cold water after taking them off the heat, and do that a few times.

All that for boiled eggs, which it seems should be the easiest thing to cook.

Oh - indespensible, I have found, is a cooking timer! I tend to forget to use it, though. ;) My methods tend toward the 'put it on then go find some Holmes/Watson slash to read and burn the bejabus out of whatever I'm cooking.'

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

The 'for a while' part makes it sound like you don't clean the kettle...?

I do! I do I do. Only the heating coil is all, coiledy. and hard to clean. So it generally smells of eggs in there for a while.