A little thing at a dark time

Spending more time working from home over the last 18 months has had its benefits.  No doubt, a lot of the changes and restrictions of pandemic life have been frustrating and exhausting, but some of the upsides of a more relaxed working environment at home have been welcome.

I won’t go into a long list here, we probably all have our individual thoughts, but I was reminded of one just this morning as my wife was making her breakfast.   

The boys were off at school and the house was quiet.  I was finishing up my breakfast, and my wife began to prepare what became a bit of a quarantine breakfast routine for us for much of last year.

A sunny-side egg with some avocado, Trader Joes Everything Bagel seasoning on a piece of toast.  An open-faced sandwich of goodness.

It’s pretty simple really, but never anything I had time for when I had to be out the door to get kids to school and myself to the office.  As the lockdowns rolled, this meal became a regular in our household, and we all got pretty good at making it.

But the real excitement came when my wife introduced our boys to the concept of the double-yolked egg.   The white whale of breakfast fare.

They’re pretty rare, you see, and when you get a double yolker you are supposed to have good luck.  For us, hoping for one became pretty much a daily routine.

“Do you think that’s a double yolker?” one of us would ask.

“I don’t know. It’s pretty big.  It could be.”

“Ahhhh!  Dang it.  Single yolker.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow.”

It would go on and on, day after day, and every once and a while a double yolker would fall into the sizzling pan to great excitement. 

People would run up the stairs and stick their heads into bathrooms yelling at people in the shower, “We got a double yolker!”

“No way!  Great job!” would come back from the bathroom.

And then, for a short time, my wife found at the store a bag of magic beans, except the bag was full of double-yolked eggs.  This mysterious carton of eggs from the nest of an incredibly fertile hen laid double yolker after double yolker.  It was an amazing breakfast time winning streak, and it got so off the charts that our usual a.m. anticipation actually started to give way to egg entitlement.  As our cholesterol soared, double yolkers were our new normal.

It was a little thing at a dark time.

But of course, unlike Covid, our yolk run came to an end after a while, and breakfast got a little less awesome.  In fact, the sunny side egg with avocado and toast fell off in its frequency.

Which brings me back to this morning and my wife.  Like I said, I was standing in the kitchen finishing my breakfast, and she started to assemble the ingredients for her egg and avocado open-faced sandwich.

First, the toast.  The good bread.  Not the bread we use for the kids’ lunches. 

“Is this still fresh?” she asked.  “Yep.  Still good,” she answered herself.

Then the avocado.  There were many to choose from and picking the one that is the right kind of ripe is the key. 

Squeeze.  Too firm.  Squeeze.  Ehh?  Squeeze.  Yes, this one.  This one is perfect. 

She sliced it in half and popped out the pit, snatching it with a quick swing of a knife.  She put one half away in the fridge for later and mashed up the other half on a cutting board with a fork, prepping it perfectly for spreading on the bread patiently waiting to be lowered into the toaster.

To the cupboard for the Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel seasoning.  This seasoning really does make the sandwich special.  She placed it next to the mashed avocado.

She reached into the cupboard for the small, single egg-sized frying pan we’ve used so often to bring the sunny sides to our morning breakfast table.  Dripping a little olive oil in the pan, the click, click, click of the burner signaled that fire was coming and the egg would soon be sizzling and popping.

With the pan heating, she walked to the fridge to pick out her egg.  Again, many to choose from, but she reached in confidently and pulled out a beauty.  It was a deep brown and large.

“This is a big one,” she said.  “This could be a double yolker.” 

“Ya think?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she replied.

I thought back to the string of double yolkers from last year and realized if we had a double yolker today the boys would miss out.  The downside of the schools being open again.

She walked to the stove and tested the pan.  It was ready.  Just hot enough that when the egg hit the pan the sizzle would be immediate.

“Here we go,” she said.

Crack, pry, sizzle.

“Dang it!” She said. “No double yolker.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess the yolks on you.”