Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 March 2007 14:05:15
One of the last things I do at night before going to bed is make my sandwiches for lunch at work the following day. Last night I stood, half asleep, staring into the fridge trying to figure out what to put in my sandwiches, having run out of the usual cheese. Eventually I decided on egg mayo. The only drawback was this meant waiting for the eggs to hard-boil. And I wanted to go to bed. Fortunately Mr Chef came into the kitchen at that point and, having said that he wanted to do a bit of work on the computer before retiring to bed, offered to watch the eggs and make the sandwiches for me.
‘How long does an egg take to hard-boil?' he asked. I gave instructions, commenting that I didn't think that it was possible to over-hard-boil an egg. Once it's hard-boiled it can't get more hard-boiled, can it?
I went upstairs to bed and read for a bit. I could hear the gentle tapping on the computer keyboard, interrupted at one point by a bang that I assumed was Mr Chef dropping something in the study. I dozed off to sleep.
A bit later I woke up and looked at the clock. An hour had passed. Then I became aware of a horrible smell, a sort of sulphuric burning smell. I called downstairs to the man in the study, ‘can you smell burning?' There was a pause. Then the sound of running towards the kitchen.
I went downstairs. In the kitchen I found a sheepish-looking Mr Chef. In the pan on the hob were two cracked and brown eggs. ‘I'm so, so sorry' he said, ‘I'll do some more for you... and I'll watch them this time.' Pause. ‘Ummm, did you hear them explode?'
What could I say? I just laughed. Now I know that it is possible to over-hard-boil an egg. If you leave an egg in water boiling for over an hour, the water eventually boils away. Then the egg heats up, expands and the shell explodes with a bang. Then the exposed egg starts to burn.
The second lot of eggs Mr Chef hard-boiled for me have, however, made some very nice sandwiches for lunch. I've just eaten them.