Her name is Jackie Plant and she arrived at Woman’s Day a few weeks ago to take the helm of the food pages there. Jackie was the food editor of Parents magazine before going to Woman’s Day and that gives her a good background for a change in direction for the magazine that was the first magazine ever distributed solely in grocery stores back in the 1930’s. Jackie plans to put more of a family spin on the food pages of the publication.

We celebrated Jackie’s new position with her test kitchen and editorial staff at a restaurant called Bar Americain, the midtown Manhattan home for Food Network chef Bobby Flay. The food was wonderful and Jackie, in my honor, ordered an appetizer of poached egg on Boston lettuce where the yolk that spilled over the lettuce served as the dressing for the salad. We ate a whole gamut of dishes from steak tartare where the raw beef was cubed instead of ground, red snapper tacos, shrimp n’ grits and a whole array of cold seafood samplers.

More important was what we talked about. Eggs. When the conversation turned to the rising cost of food, we decided that even though egg costs are up, they still remain the cheapest high quality protein the magazine readers can get. But, that wasn’t the best part of eating eggs. It was unanimous that eggs have got to be the single most versatile food you can buy. To that end, Jackie and her staff said they’d look into that versatility as the subject for a feature in Woman’s Day, probably after the December (Christmas) issue goes to press. It was interesting to learn that the staff is presently working on the October issue. They told me that holidays have no meaning to them anymore. When it’s Easter on the calendar, it’s July 4th to them. And when it’s Labor Day they’re celebrating New Years. Weird.

I wanted to let everyone know that the American Egg Board’s “Search for America’s Worst Cook” contest is launching its second year tomorrow! And it’s even bigger and better than last year’s contest.

If you are… kitchen-challenged… or know someone who is… enter the contest at www.AmericasWorstCook.com. There are also how-to videos, tips and recipes from yours truly on there.

And did I tell you that I am now a rapper? Crazy but true! I teamed up with YouTube “star” Remy to create this video about being the worst cook: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zvFR1cEl7mo

Even better, you can put yourself… or the worst cook you know… into a video with me and Remy! Just got to www.AmericasWorstCook.com and click on “Star In A Video.”
Do tell me how you like it all. And do enter yourself, or someone you know, in the contest! The winner will be featured in an American Egg Board ad and win a trip for two to New York City for a culinary makeover… and, if they’d like, dinner with me!

Click on the TV icon below to watch a short video where I show you a great short-cut for making poached eggs. Try it at home and let me know how it goes!

That’s what matzo brei is. As I mentioned in my last post, matzo is a thin crispy cracker-like sheet, about a 10-inch square, that is available in markets all year round, but especially during Passover. Matzo what the Jewish people ate when they hurried across the desert escaping from the Pharaoh in Egypt.

Matzo brei, my Jewish frittata, is essentially fried matzos. Here’s how you do it:

Matzo Brei – 2 servings

• 4 eggs
• ½ cup of water
• ¼-cup diced onions sautéed in butter*
• 4 sheets of matzo

Mix together the eggs, water and onions.

Run the sheets of matzo under running tap water so that they are moist but still firm and crumble them into the egg mixture. Stir it all together.

Heat a generous tablespoon of butter in a 10-inch frypan. Pour in the mixture. Then, like a frittata, let it set up, then stir it occasionally until it’s completely set.

That’s it! What could be easier?

*Make it even better: when you’re sautéing the diced onions, include sliced mushrooms and/or diced red and/or green bell peppers and/or diced salami and/or (gasp) diced bacon.  Yes, bacon.  I’m a reformed Jewish guy.

And just like other holidays that do or don’t have a religious spin, what’s cooking in the kitchen is usually something everyone will enjoy regardless of which way they pray. Passover is no exception.

I regard the Passover meal as kin to Thanksgiving dinner in that it’s a great big family affair. Friends, family and neighbors gather around the celebration meal table to eat far too much holiday food. At Thanksgiving we celebrate our freedom from King George. At Passover it’s also a celebration of freedom, from the oppression of the Pharaohs. Either way, we rejoice. And we eat, eat, eat.

At Passover, Jewish people eat foods they normally don’t eat any other time of year. One of those foods is matzos. Matzos are flat, thin cracker-like sheets. The matzo sheets measure about 10-inches square and are sold in boxes to keep the sheets from crumbling.

Matzo is actually unleavened bread harkening back to the time the Jews fled Egypt in a hurry. Such a hurry, in fact, that when they made bread as they hustled across the dessert, they didn’t have time to wait for the bread to rise so they baked it as-is. Even though matzo flies off of the grocery shelves at Passover time, it’s available the year ‘round making it possible to prepare my great-grandmother’s recipe for matzo kugel anytime.

And that’s what I do. “Kugel,” by the way, loosely translates to “pudding,” the custard-like medium the matzo bakes in.

This recipe for Great Grandma’s Matzo Kugel is at least four generations old. I hope that you’ll try it even though you might never have bought matzo before. It’s a Passover spin on familiar bread pudding but with more flavor and far, far more texture.

Great Grandma’s Matzo Kugel

• 6 eggs
• 6 tablespoons of “schmaltz” (rendered chicken fat that’s readily available frozen in most
• markets these days), or substitute softened butter
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• ½ teaspoon of pepper (white pepper if you’ve got it)
• ¾ cup of cold water
• 8 sheets of matzo
• 2 large onions, diced and sautéed in more schmaltz or butter

Preheat oven to 325F.

Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk in the schmaltz or butter until well combined with the eggs. Add the salt, pepper, cold water and onions and mix it all together.

Run the matzo sheets under running tap water until the surface is somewhat soggy but the sheets are still firm. Then crumble them into the egg mixture. Mix this all together, making sure there’s enough liquid for the matzo to absorb some more.

Spray an 8×8x2-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Pour the mixture into the dish and bake it for about 40 minutes. Let is stand 5 minutes before serving.

As my grandma would say, “enjoy it in good health.”

…was the easiest soufflé I ever made. This past Monday I was on Martha Stewart Living Radio with Betsy Karetnick talking about eggs for dinner and I brought up the subject of soufflés. I used to demonstrate soufflé making but got discouraged when I’d begin each program by asking to see the hands of those in my audience who made a soufflé that week. No one. That week? Nada. This life? Well, up went maybe 10 hands. People still have a fear of soufflés and no matter how easy I try to make it look.

But it’s easiest of all when all you do is talk it through. Separate eggs. Make a basic white sauce with butter, flour and milk. Flavor it (in this case, with spinach and cheddar cheese) and set it aside. Beat the egg whites until they cling to the sides of the mixing bowl.  Then stir the egg yolks into the sauce mixture, and fold the sauce and egg whites together.  Then, bake it. What’s so tough about that?

We did, though, give some helpful soufflé -making tips:

1. Separate the eggs cold from the fridge because they separate more easily.
2. But beat-up the whites when they’re at room temp because you’ll get more volume.
3. Butter and dust the soufflé dish so the soufflé mixture has some texture to grip onto as it rises up the side of the dish.
4. Test the beaten egg white volume by rocking the bowl they’re in. They grip the sides.
5. Don’t open the oven door to peek before the soufflé has been baking for at least 25 minutes. 

I referred listeners to the American Egg Board website for a specific basic soufflé recipe and urged them to give it a try. And since the subject of the radio program was eggs for dinner, we also discussed stratas – even how to make one in the microwave – and a recipe for eggs en croute for which a recipe also appears on IncredibleEgg.org. It’s far easier to make than it sounds

I was lucky enough to attend the Easter Egg Roll at the White House this past Monday – what an assault on the senses! Unless, of course, you’re 7 and 8 years old, like my grandchildren Michele and Frank, and you believe in the Easter Bunny.

Because the American Egg Board is a sponsor of the big event, I was able to secure tickets for us. What a show it was. The day begins on the White House ellipse lawn where students from a local culinary school serve a breakfast of scrambled eggs wrapped in a flour tortilla, orange colored Jell-O with mandarin orange segments imbedded in it, pineapple juice and fresh bananas. Can you think of a breakfast smorgasbord a kid would love more? I can’t.

Once on the actual White House property, it was hellzapoppin’! There was so much going on that my grandchildren didn’t know where to begin. After President Bush greeted everyone, the fun began. Barbara Bush (the former first lady) assembled a group of kids and began reading them a story. Then a “Wild Kingdom” character assembled a group of kids to show them a real live vulture (they were fascinated) and let them pet an alligator. Disney characters were there for photos with the kids as were other kids’ favorites like Dora the Explorer, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Cabbage Patch Kids and so many other characters in costume I didn’t even recognize, though my grandchildren did, and they didn’t know who to say hello to first. There was even the silly guy with the tall upwardly combed hair from the Ringling Bros. Circus, who I recognized but the kids didn’t.

There were people dressed as presidents from the past that strolled around the grounds. My grandson, Frank, was able to take yo-yo lessons from a yo-yo champion (who gave him his first yo-yo) while my granddaughter, Michele, had her face painted with an image of the Scottie dog that’s the Bush family pet. And since this was, after all, an egg roll, everyone got a chance to roll a wooden egg down a track with a plastic spoon. It wasn’t a race. Just an experience.

Best of all, though, at least as far as Michele and Frank were concerned, was seeing the Jonas Brothers, today’s hottest kid band group from Disney, performing live and in person. The kids went wild! Thousands of them! My kids are such Jonas Brothers fans that they were able to sing the tunes the group was playing. With glee!

By noon, both the kids and I were exhausted! We had access to a VIP tent for a VIP lunch of sloppy Joes and grilled chicken. But who cared! When we walked into the tent, there sat the Jonas Brothers!!!! I saw in my grandchildren, for the first time, the personification of the word “starstruck.” They were mere feet from their musical idols, and were frozen with awe. I knew then that this was going to be a day they would never, ever forget. Me neither!

Last Friday, a friend of the American Egg Board, registered dietitian Mary Lee Chin, went on the NBC television station in Denver to talk about Easter and Egg Salad Week. I bet you didn’t know that every year, the week following Easter is Egg Salad Week! This “holiday” was started to encourage everyone to use all of those delicious leftover Easter eggs.

To kick off Egg Salad Week, I recommend reading Mary Lee Chin’s blog post on what she discussed on NBC. Not only does she provide some great meal ideas for what to do with all those leftover Easter eggs, she also gives a great run-down on all of the nutritional benefits of eggs! You can read it here: http://maryleechin.blogspot.com/2008/03/egg-salad-week-what-to-do-with-all_20.html

They’re hard cooked and colored, can you suggest recipes for them? Are they safe to eat if they’ve been out of the fridge for some time? What’s the history of Easter eggs?

These are the questions I get asked most often about eggs at Easter time. I won’t try to answer these questions plus any others you may have because all of the answers are at the American Egg Board website: www.IncredibleEgg.org 

My favorite Easter feature on the website is the new “Incredible Easter Egg Designer,” which is on the homepage. You can design your own digital Easter egg and send it to your friends!

Once you’ve created your perfect digital egg, go to the “Kids and Family” section.  There are egg decorating ideas including methods using all-natural colorings, and the background on holiday customs and traditions.

Find dishes that use up all those leftover Easter eggs in the “Recipes” section – a favorite of mine is Curried Eggs & Peas. And in the “Egg Safety” section you can find answers to all of your food safety questions.

As you might expect, more eggs are sold at Easter time than any other time of the year.  And here’s an interesting fact: New England is the only part of the country that primarily sells brown eggs year ‘round. That changes at Easter time when white eggs make their way into supermarkets and grocery stores so that those New Englanders can partake in the egg coloring tradition. But after Easter, the brown eggs are back.

By the way, there’s no difference whatsoever between brown and white eggs except that the brown shell is sturdier than a white one. The flavor’s the same. The nutritional values are the same. Only the hens that lay them are different. It turns out that white eggs come from white hens and brown eggs come from brown hens. It’s that simple.

Click on the TV below to learn a great way to peel hard-cooked eggs!