My class schedule is a bit more generous with my morning time this term. So, to save money I tend to make myself a nice, full American style breakfast. Stumptown coffee made with my French press, bacon, toast and some scrambled eggs.
Scrambled eggs have always held a special place for me. It was one of the first thing Mom and Dad had me cook for myself on my own. Looking back I can now tell that I overcooked them every time, used water instead of a diary fat, and didn’t develop one, big nice solid piece of eggy goodness to enjoy. But I didn’t care back then, it was something *I* made and that was good enough.
A few years later, I was starting to really get into the art of cooking. One of my biggest influence was Jacques Pepin. Unlike the celebrity chefs of the time and today, especially certain British chefs (who will remain unnamed), Pepin had a joy that he took with him into the kitchen. He wanted to teach you how to cook because you could then enjoy food as much as he does. It was always for your benefit. One of his best bits, in my opinion, was a short video segment he did on omelettes. The line that stuck out to me was “If I wanted to judge how good of a chef someone was, I’d ask them to make me an omelette” My dad and I both heard that and were like “Gauntlet, thrown sir” and basically began making several omelettes a day.
I never really got to the point where I could make a light, thin, uniformly colored, creamy French omelette like the one pictured above. My country style omelettes were on point, but I could never quite get the technique of the French omelette down. Although I did try. When I worked at The Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite, I was often put in charge of the buffet omelette station. The kind of thing where the hotel’s guests would ask you to make them a custom omelette right in front of them. They didn’t really give people an option for the omelettes though, so it was all country omelettes all the time. This sort of forced my skill set in the direction of the country omelette. And while they’re good, some variety would be nice.
Well, with my new more generous school schedule, now I have the time to try again. I’m really trying to finally get the hang of those damn French omelettes. The part that gets me is Jacques makes it look so easy. But I can tell you for sure that they aren’t.
Like, I’m close. But those country omelette habits are still there and still pop up every once in a while. I’m getting the thinness but still overcooking it so it’s more hard than creamy. It still tastes good no matter what, but getting it just right is the goal. I’ll get the hang of it for sure. But in the meantime it’s good to kind of pick up this particular torch again and try to master this skill.
