Tamar Adler, in An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, on poached eggs:

I’ve heard of a lot of perfect ways to poach an egg, I’m sure they work. The problem with them is that to poach eggs is to understand egg cooking as you can’t when you cook them any other way.

A boiled egg stays secret until it’s cooked, and a frying egg sizzles in fat, too hot to touch. But poached eggs are cracked out of their shells and cooked directly in barely simmering liquid, which means you can literally feel them as they cook. The trouble with setting a timer, covering a pan, and walking away is that you end up bound to your trick, lost without a timer, stuck without a lid.

I followed her advice and made—though did not eat, given my eccentricities—poached eggs this morning for the first time.

(Photo by Lisa)