Eggsecutive Orders

by Julie Hyzy

  CHAPTER 26

  “HOW DID IT GO?” MOM ASKED THE MOMENT I came through the door.

  “Confusing.” And far too much to discuss just now.

  “You still have a job?” Nana asked.

  Mrs. Wentworth and Stanley were in my kitchen, looking up at me with anticipation. I said hello. “I still have a job,” I answered. “Although I don’t know how I managed it.”

  Nana patted my hand as I pulled up a chair to join them. “You did good,” she said.

  There were cookies in the middle of the table, and within seconds of my sitting down, my mom had poured me a cup of steaming coffee. I glanced at the clock. “It’s still morning,” I said. “I feel like I’ve been gone for days.”

  “Why do you folks have all the fun?” Mrs. Wentworth asked. “Your grandma’s been here for a few days and she gets all the excitement. Just once I’d like to be involved in one of your adventures, Ollie.”

  I shook my head. “Believe me, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.”

  “Did you see the morning paper?” Mom asked. She must have known I hadn’t, because she pulled it out and folded it to Liss’s column. “Read this.”

  Today, Liss Is More gives credit where it is due.

  I glanced up. “Oh no. Am I in it?”

  “Keep reading.” Mom said with a smile.

  Yesterday’s fun-filled extravaganza on the White House South Lawn-the annual Easter Egg Roll-was marred by two unhappy incidents.

  “He shouldn’t be reporting this!”

  “Keep reading,” Mom said again.

  Not one, but two attendees were stricken by illness and had to be taken to nearby hospitals. Agent Phil Cooper suffered a massive heart attack. He is expected to make a full recovery thanks to the quick intervention of medics on the scene. Not so lucky was Ruth Minkus, widow of the recently deceased Carl Minkus. She was believed to have suffered from a ruptured aneurysm in her lung. Although she was rushed to emergency surgery, she did not survive. Our sympathies are with Joel, who has now lost both parents in little over a week.

  In the middle of it all, once again, was White House Chef Olivia Paras, who appropriately gets in more hot water than a tea bag. (This reporter made several attempts to reach Ms. Paras for comments, only to be rebuffed.) This time, however, she is credited with alerting paramedics and is to be thanked for her presence of mind as well as her heretofore unknown ability to triage.

  “I can’t believe this.”

  Nana chuckled. “You shouldn’t. Most of it isn’t true. Except for the part where you should be thanked.”

  My family and neighbors knew part of the truth, though not all of it. They didn’t know about Minkus’s treason. They knew Ruth killed her husband, but they didn’t know why. They didn’t know Kap was an undercover spy-although I believed my mother suspected as much. All they knew, and cared about, was that we were all safe, here, and in one piece. And I still had my job at the White House.

  I turned my attention back to Liss’s article.

  It is too bad that Mrs. Minkus died before the medical examiner released his findings. She would have discovered that husband died of natural causes after all. Unfortunately, she went to her grave believing someone had murdered him. I am sad for her, but even more so for Joel Minkus-this week has been the worst of nightmares.

  And today I announce my vacation. An extended vacation. Effective immediately, I am suspending this column. Indefinitely. This week has been too much. Even for a crusty old newsman like me. As they say, Liss Is More, but sometimes less Liss is better. At least for the moment.

  Carry on.

  “Wow.” That was about the only thing I could say.

  “Yeah,” Mom said, folding the paper neatly. “I’m keeping this.”

  “What for?”

  Nana slapped my hand playfully. “Souvenir, what else?”

  The phone rang while Mrs. Wentworth and Stan were still at my kitchen table. It was Suzie and Steve calling, this time with happy news. Apparently the FBI had cleared them, just as the Bureau had cleared Bucky. They were grateful to me for the reprieve, despite the fact I insisted I had nothing to do with it.

  Later that afternoon, I offered to take Mom and Nana anywhere they wanted to go, but they insisted I relax. “Too much excitement,” they said. “You need a break.”

  I had just dozed off on the couch with my family reading and watching TV next to me, when the apartment phone rang. I rose to answer it and sucked in a breath when I saw the Caller ID-“ 202.”

  This was exactly how this whole ordeal had started a week ago.

  My heart pounded, but I answered.

  It was Marguerite Schumacher.

  Mom and Nana stopped what they were doing to watch me. I listened to Marguerite, answered in the affirmative several times, and with a great sigh, hung up.

  “What was that about?” Nana asked.

  Mom had gotten to her feet. “Is everything okay?”

  For the first time in days, my heart was light. “Remember that White House tour I promised you?” I asked.

  They nodded.

  “We’re on tomorrow at noon.”

  I watched relief flood their faces.

  “Oh, and wear something nice,” I added.

  They both looked at me in puzzlement. “Why?”

  “The president and his wife,” I said, “have invited us to lunch.”

  EGGCELLENT EGGS

  EGGS ARE ONE OF THE MOST BASIC INGREDIENTS in the kitchen. They’re great on their own, whether coddled; scrambled; fried; boiled; or simply accented in omelets, quiches, and custards. They serve to bind savory ingredients together, as in meat loaf, meatballs, croquettes, and so on. They make baking possible, forming a protein base for everything from cookies to cakes to pancakes to crepes to soufflés and beyond. Eggs are probably the single most versatile ingredient a cook works with. They’re also fast-cooking, full of nutrients and easily digested protein, and delicious. What more can any chef ask for?

  I work long hours, so I frequently fix myself breakfast for dinner after a long day in the kitchen. There’s just nothing better than a fried egg sandwich for a late-night meal when I don’t feel like rustling up something complicated to eat. I refuse to apologize for it these days. Whenever I mention my little secret of eating breakfast food at night, my friends all confess to loving breakfast for dinner, too. It’s even become something I deal with in my job, because the First Family actually asks for breakfast for dinner about once a month, so I’ve added it to the official White House First Family Meal Rotation. I never thought my secret fetish for breakfast at night would become a job requirement. But eggs are comfort food, so I can see why they remain perennial favorites, especially in the White House.

  Here are a number of good egg recipes to try for yourself, ranging from the simple to the refined. Eggs don’t have to be confined to breakfast or brunch. Try them for dinner. I bet you’ll find, as I have, that the people you’re feeding will love them. Happy noshing!

  Ollie

  EGGS BENEDICT

  8 eggs

  4 egg yolks

  2 tablespoons cream

  Juice of ½ lemon (around 1 tablespoon)

  ½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt

  Pinch cayenne pepper or paprika (optional)

  1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted and still hot

  4 English muffins, fork split, buttered and toasted

  8 slices warm Virginia ham (or Canadian bacon, if

  you prefer) cut to fit the muffins

  Chopped parsley to garnish (optional)

  Serves four.

  Bring a medium saucepan full of salted water to a rolling boil. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Crack 1 egg into a small bowl, taking care not to break the yolk. Gently slip the egg into the saucepan filled with hot water, and repeat with 3 more eggs. (You can usually fit 4 eggs at a time in the hot water. Too many, and the eggs won’t poach correctly.) Gently coddle to doneness, about 3 minutes, until the whites are set and the yol
ks remain runny. Remove the eggs from the hot water with a slotted spoon. Set on warmed plate to hold. Repeat with remaining 4 eggs.

  Make Hollandaise Sauce: This blender recipe takes a lot of the angst out of the process of making the sauce the traditional way, which is over a double boiler with a wire whisk. I find it’s a lot easier for home cooks to get perfect hollandaise sauce this way. Place egg yolks in a blender container. Add cream, lemon juice, salt, and a pinch of cayenne or paprika (optional, but it adds a nice bite). Cover and pulse on low until blended. Remove the middle insert from the lid, and while continuing to blend on low, slowly and gently add the hot butter to the egg mixture, in a gradual stream. The sauce should thicken and smooth about the time the last of the butter goes in. (The hot butter cooks the egg yolks and the blender emulsifies the lemon juice and melted butter with the yolks.)

  On warmed serving dish, top each toasted English muffins half with a warm slice of Virginia ham. Place a poached egg gently on top of the ham. Pour hollandaise sauce over eggs. Sprinkle with paprika and chopped parsley to garnish. Serve warm.

  This recipe sounds a lot more complicated than it is, and it’s a restaurant favorite because it used to be a lot harder to make at home. In fact, eggs Benedict used to be a bear to make-especially getting the sauce right. Doing it on the stove, the sauce had a tendency to curdle in inexperienced hands. Thanks to the wonder of modern blenders and a good stove, you should be able to have this on the table in less than 20 minutes.

  HERBED SCRAMBLED EGGS

  Six eggs

  2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

  3 tablespoons chopped chives

  1 clove garlic, smashed, peeled, and minced (see

  note, below)

  1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, or ½ teaspoon dried

  thyme leaves

  1 cup fresh spinach, washed, de-stemmed, and

  patted dry

  Kosher or sea salt and pepper, to taste

  Serves two.

  Break eggs into a bowl. Stir with a fork or whisk gently to break up, but not to blend totally. Set aside.

  Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and gently rotate the pan to coat the bottom. Add chopped chives, garlic, thyme, and spinach. Stir until spinach wilts and the garlic cooks through and softens, about 2 to 3 minutes.

  Transfer mixture to warmed serving plate.

  Add remaining olive oil to the same skillet. Gently rotate the pan to coat the bottom. Pour beaten eggs in oiled skillet. Allow bottom to set. Bring in the edges to the center, letting the remainder of the uncooked eggs pour across the pan to cook. Add cooked herbs and greens. Stir slowly until eggs are cooked and the greens and herbs are roughly incorporated, 1 to 2 minutes. Top with salt and freshly grated pepper, to taste. Slide onto warmed serving plate. Serve warm.

  The easiest way to deal with fresh garlic is to place a clove on a cutting board, place the broad end of the blade of a chef’s knife over it so the blade is parallel to the cutting board surface, and smash your fist against the smooth metal of the knife-carefully! Don’t let your flesh get too close to the knife’s cutting edge-kitchen accidents are bad. The pounding will smash the garlic and burst the clove free of its papery wrapping, which you can pull off and discard. You can then chop the clove easily.

  CINNAMON FRENCH TOAST

  4 eggs

  1 cup half-and-half

  2 tablespoons brown sugar

  1 tablespoon cinnamon, plus extra for serving

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  1 small loaf French bread, raisin bread, or whole

  wheat bread, sliced

  ½ cup (1 stick) butter

  Maple syrup

  Confectioner’s sugar

  Fruit to garnish (optional)

  Ice cream or whipped cream (optional)

  Serves four.

  Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.

  Break eggs into a flat-bottomed square casserole dish. Whisk until uniform and yellow. Stir in half-and-half, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Whisk till blended. You will need to whisk lightly before each dip; the cinnamon tends to float.

  Dip slices of bread into the egg mixture, one at a time, on both sides.

  Heat griddle over medium-high heat. Place pats of butter on griddle, one for each space on which you plan to cook a slice of toast. Place dipped bread slice on top of each pat of butter. Cook until browned, about 2 minutes. Top with another small pat of butter. Flip slices onto butter to cook other side of toast until browned. Remove to warmed serving plate. Place completed toast slices in oven to keep warm while you continue cooking.

  Plate slices onto a small pool of maple syrup. Sprinkle with cinnamon and confectioner’s sugar. Add a side of fresh fruit to garnish. Serve with more maple syrup on the side.

  For true decadence, serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

  SCOTCH EGGS

  This is a hearty recipe that is the old Scotch equivalent of a modern breakfast sandwich-portable, easy to eat on the run, and filling enough to see a working person through a busy morning. This is not diet food, but it is amazingly tasty.

  6 eggs

  1 pound breakfast sausage, thawed

  1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

  Serves three.

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

  Hard-boil the eggs: Place the raw eggs in a saucepan with enough room-temperature water to cover about 1 inch over the top of the eggs. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. When the pan, water, and eggs have cooled enough to safely handle, pour off water. Rattle the eggs in the pan to bash the eggshells against the side. This will break them and leave the eggs easy to peel. Peel off eggshells and discard.

  Divide breakfast sausage into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten it. Put the sausage patty on your hand, place a hard-boiled egg on the sausage and gently roll the sausage around the egg with both hands until it is covered in an even layer of sausage. Roll the sausage-covered eggs, one at a time, in seasoned bread crumbs. Place the crumb-covered eggs on a cookie sheet or in an uncovered casserole dish and bake until sausage is cooked through, about 25 minutes.

  To serve, cut each egg in half lengthwise. Lay the two halves on a plate, side by side, cut side up, to show layers of crumbs, sausage, egg whites, and egg yolks.

  Serve warm.

  A FAT-FREE, CHEESE-FREE, YOLK-FREE, HIGH-FIBER OMELET

  Given that almost every recipe in here is likely to send a cardiologist into palpitations, here’s the exception.

  ½ cup broccoli florets, cleaned and chopped

  1 cup fresh spinach leaves, cleaned and de-stemmed

  ½ cup fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced

  1 plum tomato, chopped

  1 green onion, rinsed and thinly sliced

  ¼ cup fat-free ham, cubed

  1½ cups egg substitute

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  Serves two.

  Coat a nonstick skillet with nonstick cooking spray and place over medium heat. Add the vegetables and the ham to the skillet. Sauté until the veggies are cooked through, the spinach has wilted, and the broccoli is tender, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat to a warmed plate and set aside.

  Rinse and dry the skillet. Spray again with nonstick cooking spray. Add egg substitute to pan. Roll the pan around, spreading the egg substitute evenly across the skillet surface. Reduce heat. Cook over medium heat until bottom is well set, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip egg in pan to cook other side. Place vegetable-ham mixture on half of the egg’s surface. Fold cooked egg round gently over veggies. Slide out of skillet onto warmed plate.

  Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve warm.

  DEVILED EGGS

  6 hard-boiled eggs

  3 tablespoons Dijon mustard

  ½ small onion, very finely minced

  1 tablespoon white wine

  2 tablespoons mayonnaise

  Paprika, for garnish

  Chopped chives, for
garnish

  Serves four.

  Cut hard-boiled eggs in half lengthwise. Scoop out yolks into a medium bowl. Set whites aside on serving tray. Refrigerate. Whisk the egg yolks with Dijon mustard, onion, white wine, and mayonnaise. When well blended, pipe or spoon the egg yolk mixture back into centers of cooked whites. Sprinkle with paprika. Top with chopped chives. Serve chilled.

  A IOLI (GARLIC MAYONNAISE)

  3 egg yolks

  4 cloves garlic, mashed, peeled, and very finely

  minced

  1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

  ¾ cup olive oil (not extra virgin)

  1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

  ½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt

  ¼ teaspoon white pepper (You can use black pepper

  if you don’t have this, but you’ll see the flecks of

  it in the finished product. It gives it a rustic look,

  which isn’t all bad.)

  Juice of 1 lemon

  This is a blender recipe, to take all the stress out of getting it to emulsify. Place the egg yolks, garlic, and the mustard in the container of a blender. Cover and pulse to blend completely, about 1 minute. Remove the center of the lid, and begin to pour the olive oil into the container in a thin stream, still running on slow. When the mixture comes together and looks like mayonnaise (usually about when half the oil is incorporated), stop pouring oil and add in the vinegar, salt, and pepper. Blend. Add in another thin stream of olive oil while blending. Stop when about 2 tablespoons of oil are left to add. Add a splash of lemon juice. Blend. Adjust seasonings to taste. Add the rest of the oil if needed. The sauce should be thick, creamy, and rich, with a lovely tang of garlic.