I have cookbooks. Boy do I have cookbooks! I have gadgets too but that’s a post for another time. Now we’re talking  cookbooks. I have books that are classics like Betty Crocker, books by famous chefs like Mario Batali, books by famous non-chefs like Fannie Flagg, books based on TV shows like Good Eats and on movies like Casablanca (with some really cool recipes). I have books with nothing in them but meat, others with nothing but veggies, and others that are all pasta, all the time. I have fundraiser cookbooks, overpriced cookbooks, and some with more post-it notes marking more pages than Bushes have beans. You’d think somewhere in there I could find a decent recipe for hard boiled eggs.

I admit it. I can’t hard boil an egg. I can soft boil an egg. I can fry an egg, I can turn an egg over without the use of a spatula, I can poach an egg, I can even make egg salad as long as somebody else does the boiling for me. And it’s not as though I’m a dolt around a stove top. I can make a carbonara with my eyes closed. Risotto? Child’s play. But a hard boiled egg? Not so much.

I think the problem is in all those cookbooks. I have run across at least a dozen (no pun intended) recipes and quick tips for hard boiled eggs. There are the boiling methods, the simmering methods, the off the heat methods.There’s even one recipe that calls for baking the eggs to get a perfect hard boiled egg. And there is the time element. There are recipes calling for 8 to 30 minutes. One method alone claims perfect hard cooked eggs in 8,10,12,15,and 20 minutes.

I’m just going to stick with my over easy eggs. At least they aren’t hiding behind a shell to thwart your breakfast.

That’s what I think. Really. How ’bout you?