Low Heat, Apparently

Eggs. I have been making scrambled eggs since I was maybe fourteen. I have made them fast, over high heat, pushed around the pan aggressively until they were done, or what I thought done meant. I have made them a hundred times. It never occurred to me until last weekend that I had been doing it wrong the entire time.

I don't remember how I ended up reading about it. Some article, some rabbit hole, something I clicked on while I was avoiding looking at my bank account. The gist was: low heat, slow, keep moving, pull them before they look finished. I read it and thought, that's not how I do it, and then I thought, maybe that's the problem. I have no idea why this was a revelation. I have eaten good scrambled eggs at diners my whole life and apparently never once thought to ask why they tasted different from mine.

verdict still pending

So I tried it. Sunday morning, the apartment already warm by nine, Gerald doing his usual nothing on the windowsill. I put the heat lower than felt reasonable, I kept the spatula moving, I pulled the pan off before I was convinced they were ready. They were soft. They were actually good. I stood there eating them at the counter feeling like I had been handed a minor corrective about myself, not a big one, just a small adjustment, the kind that makes you wonder what else you've been overcooking.

I did not tell anyone. I just ate them and rinsed the plate and opened the sketchbook to the page with the bad window rectangle, and the morning went on. Some things don't need an audience. But apparently they needed a blog post, so here we are.