Egg in the middle

This post's for my dad!

I love breakfast. I especially love cereal for breakfast: in the summer, a blend of brands covered in strawberries and blueberries and peaches; in the winter, oatmeal with peanut butter stirred in. But when  it's a rainy Saturday morning and the cereal boxes are empty - but a loaf of bread is on the counter and eggs are in the fridge - what's a girl to do?

Egg in the middle, of course!

When I was growing up, this was a Saturday morning favorite, with an accompanying chant from my brother and sister and me that went something like, "Egg in the middle! Egg in the middle!" (Creative stuff, right?) My dad makes a really good egg in the middle, although our opinions differ on the perfect one: he likes the yolk a little bit runny and I say cook it all. He'd cook our eggs through and probably grumble, "Kids just don't know what's good" - a statement of which he and my grandpa were fond, one that could also be applied to things like mushrooms and oysters and other grown-up foods.

My brother has gone on to be able to cook a mean egg in the middle of his own. On the day after Christmas last year, when we were all at home and I merrily charred my own first attempt at egg in the middle, he told me the key is patience: to keep the heat low and let the whole thing come together slowly.

So, what do you do?  (Let's see if Dad is perusing Miles and Laurel today - he can weigh in if my advice is off-base.)

Get out a piece of bread. (Watermelon smoothie in upper-right corner optional but recommended.)

Lightly butter it and make a circle cutout with an upside-down small glass.

Remove circle. (But don't throw it away, because it's really good toasted.)

Lightly coat a pan in cooking spray (or butter!) and toss the bread onto the pan over medium-low heat. Let it toast for a little, then crack open an egg and drop it into the open circle. If you'd like, scramble it gently first. Season it a little with salt and/or pepper. Marvel at how lopsided your stovetop actually is as the angle starts to mangle your egg in the middle.

Whether or not this has happened to you, a couple of minutes later, finagle a cook's best trick to hide such problems: flip the project over. Flip the egg in the middle onto the other side and let the rest of the egg cook.

Disregard/eat the weird egg spillover, text your dad to report a successful egg in the middle (or text me, if you're following my instructions to a T but your own dad would be totally confused by such a message), and enjoy!