The thing is, my 10 Gack for eggs is for eggs as eggs. Once mixed up and incorporated, its usually fine (e.g. egg nog.) In a meringue its fine. The closest I can get to egg as egg is quiche. Omelets seem too close to egg. Never had a savory souffle, so I don't know its Gack quotient. Chocolate souffle is a clear -10 Gack (remembering a negative value is good.)

The best I can do is let you talk about the egg in a separate take and tell you about my fridge, which will be the subject of a separate post. Alert the Pulitzer committee. (Get well soon.)

I eat two eggs most mornings -- swirled in a frying pan, seasoned with salt and pepper and flipped like a pancake. Delicious!

First, the Devil Child; then, the trip from Hell; and, now, the Cold That Would Not Die! I hope you recover quickly [eventually?] and the rest of the year is bet

Thank you. Through the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals, this afternoon I do. EL

Since we are breaking some eggs, here's something (like quantum mechanics) I don't understand. Why take a perfectly good tuna salad or potato salad and render it inedible by the addition of hard cooked egg? Its just wrong.

I was quite surprised to read about all the gacks on eggs. I grew up eating and enjoying eggs cooked every which way, fried, scrambled, poached and hard boiled. I always assumed everyone liked eggs at least in some form. Obviously I was wrong. Do the gacks include finely chopped eggs in tuna salad?

So sorry you are not feeling better, Lady Elizabeth. ;-

Hard-boiled eggs that smell of sulfur or have a green ring have been overcooked. They should not smell bad if properly cooked!

I forgot to say, sorry to hear you're under the weather. Have some comfort food....maybe an omlette?

I'm with you, Barb.

Who doesn't like eggs?

Even the pope eats eggs.

I love eggs pretty much any way you can make them - fried, scrambled, poached, soft and hard boiled, in an omelet, etc. The only way I won't eat eggs is raw.

All you egg haters may pass me your share and I'll be glad to have them.

Barb--yes, the gacks (at least mine) include finely chopped egg in anything. I really wish I liked fried eggs and omelettes, since they look so good, but I have no desire for hard boiled eggs. ew! ;)

Hope you're soon perky again, Elizabeth. Many of us have been felled lately by intransigent germs--me and my other half included. At first you're afraid you'll die, then you're afraid you WON'T die! The thing WILL pass, but only in its own sweet time. In the meantime, you have my heartfelt sympathy. God bless DRUGS!

I was REALLY surprised by the level of egg hate on the gack list. My household eats eggs in pretty much any form for any meal. When I can't think what to make for supper, we'll have eggs, and the fall-back meal when someone feels ill is 4-minute soft-boiled eggs and toast. When done properly, it's one of life's perfect foods!

I have a new respect for the common cold and what it can morph into. EL

Gack to any foods with little bits of chopped egg in them. If there is a piece of shell it will end up on my plate. And what about that nasty white slimey thingy that connects the yolk and the white when the egg is raw (that always ends up in my meal too).

My S.O. does the most disgusting thing to eggs. Every morning he fries two eggs in butter. Breaks the yolk with a spatula and then fries them until he is positive there is no runny white. They smell soooooo bad I had to ask him to wait until I got to work before cooking eggs.

The worse smell in the entire world is a McDonald Egg McMuffin. That makes me gack.

Nothing beats home made corned beef hash topped with eggs and cooked until the whites are just set. Combine with rye toast and a bottle of Beaujolais and you have a great supper.

Egg salad gets a 10 Gack on my scale -- there's something about cold chopped egg whites that is repulsive. Hard-boiled eggs get a 9 Gack, as they're one step removed from egg salad, and soft-boiled eggs get an 8 Gack because you never know if they'll be overcooked into the hard-boiled stage. Any other cooked form of egg is perfectly fine.

Sorry Mark - It would take the entire bottle of Beaujolais + some to get me to eat that. Out of curiosity, do you fry the egg and put it on the hash or crack an egg over the hash and fry it?

That that nasty white slimey thingy is the chalazas. It actually connects the yolk to the thin membrane that's just under the shell.

No, not my fault. Too much Good Eats!

Elizabeth - my best remedy for the nasties is one my father used to make for me when I was sick. You heat up about a cup water to just below boiling, disolve a tiny bit of sugar in it, squeeze a half of a lemon into it and stir well. Then top it off with a nice shot of bourbon.

It will either make you feel better or you won't care.

And, yes, I had this as a child, purely for medicinal purposes.

KitKat - there is a worse smell than an egg mcmuffin - it's all those greasy hamburgers being cooked first thing in the morning, a memory from high school that still lives to this day and gets a gack out of me.
Anyway, about eggs - had a hell of a great omelette at Donna's today. Goat cheese and portabello - yum! So huge I couldn't get through half of it but so delish I kept eating til I was uncomfortably stuffed. Now that's the way to do eggs right!

Eggs make me ill, but even I can taste a huge difference between an egg from a free range (not just cage free - that isn't as good as it sounds) hen and a commercial battery hen. Not the same food at all. I'd put modern commercial eggs in the same gack category with fat free mayonnaise and sugar-free donuts.

Come to think of it, I actually usually can eat cage free eggs straight without getting sick. Hmm...

Get well soon. Hate to think of you trying to entertain us when you feel lousy. Put that darn Sam Sessa to work! Take good care and drink a hot toddy.

Eggs (in all of their incarnations) are food of the gods!!!!

BTW, EL, please feel better!

Sam Sessa, how do you know what the Pope eats? Have you had a private audience? Just curious.

I love eggs, and have found that the Eggland's Best eggs are superior in taste to the others.

I eat them hard-cooked, and like was pointed out earlier, if you don't overcook them, they aren't stinky.

For omelets, I use the Eggbeaters stuff.

The pope is my homeboy, Barb.

I love eggs, but the gack scale was ratcheted up a notch when I learned how long those white orbs sit in their little containers in transit, cold storage and then on the shelf. Especially during the holiday season. GACK. Lets just say it's not day or even weeks. Double GACK. Nothing tastes better than a local free range egg cooked with a little butter.

Why is it that milk and eggs are variously billed as nature's perfect foods, yet both have such high Gack factors (to many, do the count if you don't want to believe me) when taken alone (or even with a little butter)?

Luckily I wasn't drinking my coffee when I read Sam's Pope comment - LOL.

KitKat,
I crack the eggs directly on the hash and then put a lid on the skillet.

From Richard Olney's "Ten Vinyard Lunchs" try scrambled eggs with asparagus with a Chablis from Raveneau. Superb.

Mark: I hope you don't use canned asparagus!
Remember the gack factor :-)

Susan,

I try to eat seasonally and normally only cook asparagus when I can get locally grown. Sometimes I give in and buy CA in the early spring. I do know if used canned asparagus in a Richard Olney recipe he would roll over in his gave.

I am going to Gack Hell ... one of my personal comfort foods is my mom's egg salad ... mixed together with Miracle Whip. Gack x 20 for some of my fellow Sandboxers, I'm sure. Throw in some finely chopped celery, parsely and white pepper, heaven.

Sam Sessa, you wrote "even the pope eats eggs"....it took me a while, but now I get. EGGS BENEDICT! The reference was a little too obscure for me.

If you are a member of the tribe that celebrates Passover, eggs are a staple. This holiday is truly cholesterol heaven, e.g. sponge cake - 12 eggs, potato kugel - 6 eggs, any dessert that you want to rise - lots of eggs. You get the general idea. Luckily, over the years, the receipes have improved tremendously, and passover foods no longer taste like cardborard. Its the only time of year, you routinely buy 2 dozen eggs at a time.