If you know me, and I highly doubt that, you probably know me from college because I creeped around Jon’s parties. Or you’re my mom and dad. Hi Mom!

See “Our First State of Catastrophe”

If you know me even better you know that I am always late to the party, wait to write all my papers until the evening before, and at the moment am writing this while cooking my Catastrophe in my mother’s kitchen.

Just like in Scooby Doo, these eyes will follow you; unlike Scooby Doo, they judge your cooking as well.

So without further ado, my name is Max and I will be your host tonight while we explore the wonderful world of hard boiled eggs!

“That’s lame! Hard boiled eggs are easy to make!”

Yes kind sir, but have ever tried making hard boiled eggs… WITH SALT!

“That would make the water boil faster. That’s cooking 101.”

Oh, well have you ever cooked them in water with… OIL IN IT!

“That literally would have no effect being that the eggs have shells on them; you’re not cooking pasta.”

Wait, wait, I’ve got this. Have you ever boiled eggs… IN FOOD COLORING!

“What, why?”

BECAUSE IT’S EASTER AND BABY JESUS DIDN’T KILL HITLER JUST SO I’D MAKE REGULAR BOILED EGGS.

“What?”

It’s a Run the Jewels rap, kind of,  it’s been a long week. I started to boil the eggs and thought it would be fun to add food coloring because it’s almost Easter.

Easter is in April, Max. But I forgive you.

THE B-EGG-INNING

To start the adventure I grabbed a pan and covered the bottom of it with eggs and covered them in water. I did this in triplicate and added salt and olive oil to the pans to switch up the recipes along with the food coloring.

Eggs. They're magically delicious! And potentially radioactive!

Then I started to boil the eggs on my fancy induction stove top which, I shit you not, cooks eggs with magnets. If you can tell me how this works I would be much obliged because I feel like a juggalo at an Insane Clown Posse concert.

Fucking eggs, how do they work?

Unfortunately, as soon as I put the pots on the burners the stove top lit up with little “E” symbols on the heat LEDs and started to make sounds like the Millennium Falcon failing to boot into hyper-drive. So I put them on different burners, the “E” stopped flashing but the engines kept revving. I looked at my dad sitting on the couch, he looked at me, and then kept watching 30 Rock.

After letting Future Stove boil the water with the powers of its warp drive (I can do Star Trek and Star Wars references. Eat your heart out, nerds) I pulled them off onto hot pads and covered them, letting them sit for twenty minutes. If you were wondering, yes the salted pot did boil faster, followed by the pot with the oil added to it. Then the “control variable”, the regular pot without any additives started to boil. The pots were also different sizes setting the data askew a little; the moral of this story is I’m bad at science and I should have thought this through. I had to let the eggs sit and cook so I set a timer. So I made a Manhattan.  Let’s learn how to make a Manhattan, shall we?!

You’ll need four things to make it:

●       I use Angostura aromatic bitters, but any non-flavored bitters will work.

●       Sweet Vermouth

●       Maraschino Cherries

●        Bourbon Whiskey

When in doubt, drink it out.

Shake a dash of bitters in the cup, add about a tablespoon of Vermouth, add two cherries and then drop a shot and a half of Bourbon in there. Now you are drinking like a fancy lady in an uptown art gallery. In New York, because Manhattan.

Now that my timer has rung, let’s get back to the cooking! I pulled the eggs off of their hot pads and started to put them in bowls. No I don’t remember how Grandpa used to do it, but I remember not having to leave eggs in colored water for long to make the colors stick. It would be maybe five minutes, but not this time. After fishing the eggs out of their colored water I realized that something had gone wrong. This was the second time I realized that I probably should have thought this through.

Grandpa would have been so disappointed.

It turns out that the eggs actually have to be still in the water to get colored, and I guess once the coloring has been boiled it isn’t nearly as effective, like not at all. So lesson learned, a lesson I’m sure will affect me for the rest of my life.

As I pulled the rest of the eggs out of the hot, post boiling water, I managed to pour an entire bowl of it on the counter and realized that I probably shouldn’t have had that drink in the middle of cooking. Then I realized that the article was due in the morning and I still had to see how these unfermented babies tasted, I’d have to let them sit in the fridge to cool. Or not.

***

Alright I just ate the eggs and here are my findings. Nothing was different. Not only was i not able to get the fucking things colored but the only thing that was different between the eggs was that it was harder to crack the eggs in the oil because they were, well, oily.

It wasn’t a complete loss though. I learned that it doesn’t matter how you boil your eggs, be it fast with salt added, or boiling it regularly! It seems that the time in the pot covered actually cooks it and the time it takes to boil the water is insignificant. At least I have breakfast for the next couple of days.

When Max isn’t at his day job he writes D&D worlds and designs video game levels. Check out his work at maxsupler.info.