Oh balls. I guess New Orleans for Halloween is out. This was supposed to be a drinking holiday for The Little Corner of Moron, but 1/3 of us has to parent (apparently little kids like Halloween and parents take pictures, offer love, etc?) and without that 1/3, well, we are no longer a force to be reckoned with avoided.

This means that after blocking out some time for Seattle in December, I still have 2 days of vacation left to schedule. I thought about talking Graham into a road trip to somewhere, but sous chef-ery makes it hard him to get out of work on weekends and moving to a new place in October will probably eat up enough of my money as it is. I’ve decided to hire movers for my place. I was going to hire them for the big stuff only – Graham doesn’t want to move the dishwasher again without a strong, impressionable-to-the-point-of-being-heartbreakingly- dumb friend to help – but I find that as I’ve gotten older, it’s harder to picture my friends showing up and moving all my shit in exchange for pizza and beer consumed while sitting on the floor. I mean, my friends are wonderful, generous people who moved my entire apartment in less than an hour about 4 years ago, but I am not as sadistic as I seem. I have some pretty huge pieces of furniture and a shitload of books. I’m exhausted just thinking about it, and sometimes it is entirely worth it to pay the problem away. It’s also way easier to convince your friends to attend a bar stocking/house warming party when you haven’t already made them inhale the cat hair stuck to the bottom of your humongous couch.

Completely unrelated to moving but something I thought I should share, perhaps to redeem myself after writing an unamusing tweet about it:

I make the greatest scrambled eggs in the history of everything. Do you know how hard it is to make scrambled eggs this awesome? Okay, fine, it’s not hard once you learn how, but based on everyone else’s scrambled eggs, you’d think it was applied physics (or string theory, because despite the embarrassingly high number of people who have tried explaining it to me, is something I just cannot understand). Everyone else’s scrambled eggs are too dry, too runny, to greasy, or too full of cheap American cheese to be of any use to me now that I’m aware of my talent. My own scrambled eggs used to be garbage compared to what I’m capable of doing now.

And like all the other food I make so well and then talk about here, of course I don’t have a photo! I fucking ate it all! You would too, if you were me!

But seriously. In the thickest saucepan you own* that it also relatively small (I said a saucepan, not a skillet), heat about three tablespoons of butter (not margarine, goddammit, what the fuck are you even doing here if you think margarine is acceptable?!) over low heat. Heat it all the way until the white foamy stuff is melted, too. If you keep ghee in the house, I’m sure this would also be an acceptable ingredient. Once the butter is melted, lower the heat to simmer or whatever your stove’s setting is for “super duper incredibly low.”

Take four eggs, crack them into a bowl. Add about a tablespoon of heavy cream. Milk works fine, too, but only if it is 2% or higher fat. Similar to my problems with margarine, I don’t even know how to deal with you if you only have skim in the house. Just…no.

Whisk the eggs and cream together until blended. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan.

Start stirring. Not whisking, stirring. A half dozen passes with a spoon should be fine to start. If the heat is low enough, you should get some very slight curds at first but then the eggs should settle down a bit. Continue stirring occasionally – like, every minute and a half to two minutes – to evenly distribute the curds.

Add kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste. Continue stirring so that your eggs achieve a soft, custard-y texture (about eight minutes if you’re stirring like I told you in a thick, small-ish saucepan over very low heat). About a minute before you take the eggs off the heat entirely, sprinkle in some grated Parmesan cheese (not from a can, god I hate myself for having to say these things)  to taste and stir to blend.

I serve these eggs over some garlic bread done fettunta-style, which just means you toast a thick slice of bread with olive oil and then rub a garlic clove over the broad side. Then I sprinkle chopped fresh chives over the top. Then I inhale everything greedily in front of the television and hit “reject” when anyone calls me because I seriously cannot be disturbed when these eggs are involved.

*I know it’s considered dumb to purchase kitchen stuff based on what anyone who has ever been on the Food Network has ever said, but you really need to listen to Anthony Bourdain when it comes to saucepans, skillets, etc. The stuff you buy should be thick and heavy enough to brain an intruder. Seriously. I got my saucepan for like a buck at St. Vincent DePaul and feel better about having it in my hands than I would about a gun.

Because guns are scary.

Even though I’m inheriting my great-grandmother’s .38 pistol, which is still terrifying to me but really kind of cool-looking, especially as I know she owned it and she was the most awesomely insane person in my entire family, which is saying a lot because most of us are hilarious drinkers who occasionally have mental problems.