Although ham and cheese omelets are my specialty, I wanted to give my guests there something a little bit more exotic. This being the case, I chose to make an Omelet Lorraine, a 2-egg omelet with a dry white wine (Chardonnay in this case) mixed into the eggs and filled with Swiss cheese and bacon, served with a dollop of Dijon mustard. As much as I love ham and cheese, Omelet Lorraine is my personal favorite because it’s tres Francais!

Although I was only planning to cook for an hour, the huge, hungry crowd forced me to start early, so I ended up cooking for 90 minutes straight. In that time, I served 94 omelets to 94 very satisfied and grateful people–I had to cook in two pans simultaneously to get the job done! Even Delaware’s secretary of agriculture, Ed Kee, showed up! Together, we reminded everyone about the importance of a high-quality protein egg breakfast to feed both body and mind for the whole day. I shared this lesson to all of the people who watched me make omelets for the three days I was in Delaware–I even cooked at the state fair, too! What an incredibly busy trip!

Lunch first. Two short blocks from the hotel is The Carnegie Deli, which has been a landmark New York delicatessen since the day it opened in 1937. Its super-sized sandwiches (the pastrami on rye has about a full pound of meat and stands a whopping 12 inches tall!) draw such a crowd that the line often stretches on for a full hour’s worth of wait time. Because it’s only a block from my apartment, I sometimes eat there as often as twice a week. Since I have had this routine for the past 30 or so years, I’ve gotten to know the owner, Sandy Levine, pretty well. He agreed to serve the whole group of us (32 to be exact!) more manageable half pastrami sandwiches and they still stood 8-inches tall! 

Accompanying the sandwiches were two kinds of the obligatory dill pickles: the regular dill and the half-sour or “new pickles,” which are cucumbers that marinate in dill and other spices for half the time as ordinary dill pickles, so they’re bright green and crunchier. The sandwiches were served with deli style mustard (of course) and mounds of creamy cole slaw, which some guests tried to put on their sandwiches. However, the result was so tall that it would all topple over. Naturally, the meal wouldn’t have been complete without the crowning touch: Carnegie’s famous cheesecake. Year after year, Carnegie’s cheesecake is voted best in New York, and, considering it’s the world’s cheesecake capitol, that should tell you all you need to know about it! Everyone in the group agreed that this cheesecake had to be authentic because it was so much better than the cheesecake they get where they live.

(It must’ve been a sugar high that got them behaving so goofy in the group picture here taken in front of the deli right after lunch.)

Next, we walked three blocks to the Hearst Tower for a tour of the Good Housekeeping Institute. I had arranged with my friend Susan Westmoreland, the food editor of Good Housekeeping magazine, to take us around, but at the last minute she had to go to a photo shoot for her Thanksgiving issue (yes, that’s how far ahead they work!). In her place, Susan’s colleague Jessica Fox showed us around. 

During the tour, we learned about the Good Housekeeping Seal that has been around since 1909. The seal is awarded to all manner of products evaluated by the Institute that are found to perform as promised. Good Housekeeping’s staff of scientists, engineers, chefs and nutritionists evaluate almost everything that’s popular with consumers.

To us, the most interesting part of the tour was the magazine’s test kitchens on the 29^th floor of the building, complete with windows overlooking the spectacular New York City skyline. Egg recipes developed in the test kitchens and published in Good Housekeeping magazine generated more than 93 million reader impressions this year alone! In this photo, you can see for yourself how orderly and organized the test kitchens are.

As we moved around the rest of the Institute’s laboratories, we saw where everything else is tested, from health and beauty products to clothing, luggage, mattresses, electronics (there’s even a “dead sound” room for that!), vacuums, and even appliances, both large and small. While we were there, one of the engineers showed us her lab. Yipes! Every inch of countertop space was covered with every manner of electric mixer. Check out the photo below. That’s what was being evaluated when we were there. She told us that egg whites were very much a part – and maybe even the best test – of how an electric mixer performs. She would not, however, divulge any test results. But that’s okay. I read the magazine every month and will learn soon enough. As you know, my job demands that I whip-up a lot of egg whites, so I can’t wait to find out what new product to buy!

Conducted over the course of four comprehensive days, the school’s curriculum is designed for serious-minded people – most of them new to many aspects of the egg business – who want to learn as much as possible about egg quality. Four days worth of lectures, combined with individualized instruction and hands-on laboratory experience, prepare students to be egg emissaries. In one of the hands-on lessons, they learn how to make a proper omelet. Of course, that’s where I fit in.

One of the things I bring to the curriculum is some levity. The school delivers so much scientific, technical and regulatory information in such a concentrated format that students feel the pressure from day one. When the students step into my “classroom,” the pressure is off and the fun begins.

After I demonstrate how to make an omelet in a minute, all of the students step up to a frying pan and cook the omelet of their dreams, filling them with all of their favorite ingredients. This “omelet workshop” gets everyone on their feet and actively involved in fixing their own lunch, and it’s great fun. During the workshop, you can hear a “p-s-s-s-s-s-s,” in the room, which must be the palpable release of academic pressure from the group. Or is that actually the sound of butter hitting the hot frypan surfaces?

I’ve been giving omelet workshops at the school for as many years as it has been in existence, each year in a different part of the country, and with retirement looming for me, I suppose this year’s was my last. I’m glad this year’s school was in Park City, UT.  What a spectacularly beautiful setting for me to sign-off in!

My visit began, as it often does, chopping, dicing, slicing and organizing all of the ingredients I’d be using in my omelet-making demonstrations. Happily, Connie arranged for her friend Cindy to lend a hand. So, we invaded Connie’s kitchen to do the food preparation, and then sorted through it all to determine what went to each venue.  Incredibly confusing, but fun in the process! After all our hard work, we had an amazing barbecue dinner with Jim Chakeres, Director of the Ohio Poultry Association, and two of his staff. I don’t know how that Wonder Woman Connie found time to pull it all together!

Next I appeared on Channel 28 ABC/FOX “Good Morning Columbus” show where, in a 3½ minute segment, I taught the anchor, Andy Domiano, how to fix an omelet! Luckily, I also had just enough time to make a special omelet to celebrate Joe – the floor director’s – 28th birthday.  (*sigh* I’d kill to be 28 again.) The following morning at WCMH-TV NBC, I had a five minute segment with host Gail Hogan on “Good Day Columbus.” My favorite part of television appearances is watching people’s happy faces when they realize they can make a perfect omelet!

I also combined a couple of my omelet demonstration programs for my Ohio visit. Both of the programs covered how incredible the egg is – the nutrition, the versatility, the affordability, the body and mind energy it delivers, etc.  There’s so much to talk about when it comes to eggs! At the Ohio State University Medical Center, each of the 10 or 12 different omelet variations we cooked were plated and then displayed on a table. Then, everyone was invited to sample the omelets on display. At the Ohio Dietetics Association convention I held an “Omelet Workshop” where more than 200 dieticians prepared their own omelets for breakfast. I know they enjoyed the process!

There’s always time to enjoy myself on these trips, too. Wherever I travel I always ask my host to go to breakfast with me at a local restaurant where wonderful things are done with eggs. This time, Connie took me to place called Northstar on High St. in Columbus.  It serves fresh and organic fare so there’s plenty of granola, brown rice, tofu and beans on the menu – of course there’s eggs too. I ordered sweet potato and smoked turkey hash topped with two perfectly done sunny side up eggs. The combination was totally new to me, and it tasted terrific. Eggs with white potatoes are a familiar favorite, but sweet potatoes?  Whod’ve thunk!

Whenever I’m in Ohio I crave Skyline Chili, so I made sure to have a meal there with Jim Chakeres. He says the secret ingredient in the chili is cinnamon, but it isn’t just the chili itself that makes the dish. It’s the combination of spaghetti, chili, onions, beans and a huge mountain of shredded American cheese all piled on an oval plate. To eat it, you start at one end of the plate and slice through the pile with a fork in order to taste each layer in every bite. Twisting the spaghetti around the fork is totally unacceptable! I can’t get enough of it. In addition to all of my friends in Ohio whom I love reuniting with whenever possible, my reunion with Skyline Chili was a priority. What a great trip!

Run – don’t walk – to your nearest newsstand to pick up a copy of the April issue of Food Network Magazine. The cover alone will stop you in your tracks. It’s a perfectly beautiful yolk peeking through the hole of a perfectly toasted slice of bread and the word “Eggs!” screaming at you to buy the issue. From the “Editor’s Letter” to “Cooking Up the Cover,” this is certainly Food Network Magazine’s BIG EGG ISSUE!

The “Cooking Up the Cover” story talks about the process of selecting the egg-in-the-hole cover photo and, though there’s no recipe, it’s interesting to see how it landed there. There is also an “insider out-take” section which illustrates all that a food editor has to think about. The food editor for this magazine is Liz Sgroi.

Liz has been a great friend of the egg since her early days at the Hearst Publishing Co. when she was food editor of Quick & Simple magazine. Since one of my jobs with the American Egg Board is to keep in touch with the editors of magazines with food pages, I always kept Liz on my A-List of editor contacts. Her move to Food Network Magazine gave her an opportunity to be at the ground floor of a publication that is now regarded as one of the best culinary publications around.

I’ve been promoting eggs and egg recipe ideas for 40-years, so naturally I thought I have seen everything egg-wise. Until now. The magazine’s April BIG EGG ISSUE includes a bonus removable 7-page insert of 50 ideas to do with eggs, many of them altogether new to me and all of them terrific. I had lots of questions about how the feature came together and Liz answered them all. Here’s what she and the Food Network Test Kitchen staff said about it:

The insert booklet recipes were created by the genius developers at Food Network Kitchens – there were about 6 cooks working on the project. Many of the recipes they included are tried-and-true classics (like the egg-in-the-hole and the frittata), but many were inspired by dishes that the cooks have eaten in the past and wanted to recreate, plus egg dishes they’ve always wanted to try. The developers are all insanely creative, so the insert gives them a chance to play and come up with new combos. Liz told me that the Test Kitchen Director, Katherine Alford, said “Eggs are so cool, we could have done even more!”

The testing process is always very thorough – many of the egg recipes were tested 3 or 4 times to get them just right. Others were perfect on the first go. The test kitchens estimate that for this BIG EGG ISSUE they went through well over 20 dozen eggs, plus the food stylist used another 6 or more dozen for the spectacular photos. In fact, the stylist fried 2 dozen eggs just to get the perfect one that ended up in print! 

To celebrate the BIG EGG ISSUE, Liz and I had lunch together where we talked eggs for another two hours. And, look….that’s a picture of her poking into the perfectly poached egg – yup, another egg – that sat atop her warm pancetta vinaigrette-dressed escarole salad.  

Liz Sgroi…you go girl!

Once a year, my colleague Kristin Livermore, the American Egg Board’s Director of Marketing Communications, and I host these food editors for four days at a series of luncheons to thank them for all the egg dishes that have landed on their food pages over the past year. In 2009 alone, egg information and recipes were featured in a total of 170 issues of 31 different magazines! That’s a whole lotta eggs!

Every year, I look forward to chatting with my friends at the magazines and visiting the new, talked-about, and difficult to get into, restaurants! This year, we went Maialino, the first Italian restaurant to focus specifically and entirely on Roman trattoria fare vs. Italian food in general. It opened only a month ago to 5-star rave reviews – getting a table there now requires several weeks notice! Not for us. When I went to the restaurant to see if they would accommodate our group, I went with Tina Ujlaki, food editor of Food & Wine magazine. As you can imagine, she wields a lot of culinary clout around town – and we had no problem landing a table for nine for the following four days. Nice job, Tina!

Kristin and I asked the chef to create a different egg-based amuse bouche for the editors each day, a small pre-appetizer appetite stimulator that’s usually only one or two big bites. Chef Nick Anderer really delivered! Here are pictures and descriptions of the egg creations that kicked-off our lunches everyday….deeelliccciouusss!

Yolk filled Raviolo – An oversized raviolo (singular for ravioli) where the pasta dough is rolled out, with about ¼-cup of pureed ricotta cheese mounded on top. An indentation is made in the mound of cheese and an egg yolk is dropped inside. The top layer of the pasta is added carefully so as not to break the yolk. The top and bottom pasta is sealed together and the ravioli is dropped into boiling water for no more than 90-seconds. The raviolo is served on a pool of browned sage butter and garnished with a sage leaf. When it’s broken into with a fork, the yolk spills out into the butter and it all serves as the sauce. Wonderful!

Carbonara Frittata – A lot of eggs mixed with a lot of black pepper and pecorino cheese (the usual ingredients in pasta carbonara) and baked in a square pan. The finished frittata is cut into approximately 2-inch squares then each square is wrapped in a tissue-paper-thin slice of speck (a prosciutto-like ham) and a single blanched spinach leaf.

Insalata di Bottarga – Two kinds of eggs here: hen’s eggs and mullet roe. Blanched celery root sticks and the shavings from an ordinary celery stalk are plated beside a perfectly prepared soft-cooked egg half. The whole dish is covered with mullet roe that was compressed into a solid brick and shaved into tiny flakes.

Poached Egg on Chicken Broth – This is the simple one.  Fresh chicken broth served with Swiss chard and sea salt with a perfectly poached egg floating on top. Amazing!

The trip was part of the Good Egg Project – which I’ve written about in the past – it’s an initiative by America’s egg farmers to educate people about where eggs come from and encourage them to join them in the fight against hunger.  For every pledge made to “eat good and do good every day” an egg will be donated to Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief charity.  Already millions of eggs have been donated, delivering great nutrition, taste and versatility to those who can’t afford to buy them. By the way, if you haven’t done so already, visit the website now (www.GoodEggProject.org) and do your good deed today!

Back to the mom bloggers. All of these A-MAZE-ING women have a different approach to their blog. For example:  Anne Marie Nichols’ “ThisMamaCooks” is a health blog for foodies and their families; Anita Elmore’s “TheMamaZone” offers parenting and budgeting tips; Tonia Butterworth’s “AllAmericanMommy” includes a dedicated family recipe section and Ann Huddleson’s “HealthyTastyChow” focuses on healthier versions of the most popular foods. Combined, the nine moms are raising a total of 18 children, with 1 more kiddo on the way!

The tour kicked off with a delicious dinner with the Hickman family. My colleague, Chef Jeffrey Saad, and I were there to meet them all. Also, there was the sweetest, friendliest and hippest Registered Dietician I ever met, Mary Lee Chin. She was along to remind everyone of the dynamite nutrition that eggs deliver. We all had a wonderful time sharing stories and chatting about the day ahead!

When the bloggers returned from their farm tour the next day, Jeffrey and I demonstrated our recipes. I demonstrated three omelet variations: a classic filled omelet, America’s favorite Denver-Western omelet and an omelet wrapped in a whole wheat flour tortilla – with each recipe taking less than a minute to prepare!  Jeffrey demonstrated a toad-in-the-hole using a cookie cutter to make a fun, decorative hole in the bread to break an egg into. He also showed a bacon and egg grilled cheese breakfast sandwich and offered suggestions on how to tweak it slightly to add sophistication for adults! We not only showed them our egg dishes, we also turned over our pans, stoves and ingredients so they could try their hand at the dishes. What better way to illustrate the speed and ease of kid-friendly egg cooking? Not surprisingly, the moms were very deft at the fry pan. They approached the cooking stations with an air of confidence and enthusiasm that clearly demonstrated they knew their way around the kitchen!

Isn’t it great that moms from all over the country can meet in cyberspace? And the word “great” is an understatement.  It’s absolutely amazes me.  My children were raised with the help of only one resource, Dr. Spock. Today’s kids are influenced by moms who learn from other moms who live a real life in real time. That’s a far cry from Dr. Spock’s strictly clinical approach, for sure! It was clear to me that these young women were well educated and, maybe more importantly, very savvy. With the internet as their playing field, I know that they’ll ensure our next generation turns out as well-rounded and healthy as possible. And after this weekend, they are certain to be aware of where their food comes from and they’ll all live healthy, delicious lives with plenty of eggs on their menus.

A week ago, poultry and egg farmers from every corner of the world came together at the annual International Convention in Atlanta to learn what’s new in their respective agricultural fields. It was truly an international affair! My employer, the American Egg Board, maintains a “booth” there where weary exhibit-goers can relax on a comfy sofa and learn about the latest research and nutrition information.

What an appropriate place to call attention to America’s egg farmers’ response to Haitian Relief.  As part of the Good Egg Project (which I’ve written about in the past), they are in the process of donating eggs to the hundreds of thousands of families affected by the earthquake disaster there. Only dried egg product is accepted, so everyone is chipping in to make it happen. The farmers are providing the shell eggs to the processors who then turn them into the dried product that can be shipped to Haiti where it will be reconstituted. And, before you think that reconstituted dry eggs are similar to how they were when first developed for soldiers in battlefields several wars ago, think again! Today’s dried whole eggs reconstitute beautifully.  When they’re cooked you can hardly tell the difference.

But, the egg farmers gave more than just eggs! The picture below shows my boss, Joanne Ivy, the President & CEO of the American Egg Board accepting a generous donation of money from Jacques Klempf, the American Egg Board Chairman and President of Dixie Eggs. This donation will be used to purchase additional dried egg product for the Haitian effort.

Although my primary job at this convention is to visit with all of our friends who come by the booth to say hello, I also help the United Egg Producers host a breakfast for 250 to 300 folks who gather to make their own omelets and to conduct a meeting. We set up 32 cooking stations where all of the hundreds of guests fix their own omelets in less than 30-minutes time. The logistics are quite an undertaking. And it’s always successful.

This year’s convention was slightly different for me because I was asked to give my omelet demonstration at the Culinary Pavilion, an area set aside for chefs to demonstrate the trends and the new product applications that they’re using in their restaurants. I was in very good company. The chefs came from every popular restaurant in Atlanta. I talked about the growing popularity of the breakfast meal category in both fast service and casual restaurants. I demonstrated the “grab n’ go” omelet tortilla wrap that’s become so popular on menus along with combinations of fillings that go beyond ordinary ham and cheese. I demonstrated about 15 different omelets, omelet styles and filling combinations, all of which were served to the audience. I was assisted by two young culinary students (pictured) who confessed that they had no clue that the classic omelet they were taught to make in culinary school could be so versatile. Good. That was the point!

This being a B&B affair, I was lucky enough to be put-up in what must be the most beautiful B&B around! I was given the DuPont Suite in the actual DuPont Mansion - it was fabulous! The mansion is located in the historic Old Louisville District surrounded by similarly old, perfectly-maintained, Victorian mansions. As I looked around the room from my huge four-poster bed, I thought this was what it must be like to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House!

I arrived in Louisville around lunchtime and immediately went to the restaurant that is most well-known for their eggs and egg dishes - Lynne’s Paradise Café. It’s a 70’s kinda’ gaudy, quirky, high energy place fully packed with people, almost all of them, far as I could see, eating eggs in one form or another. I learned that the owner, Lynn herself, was up against the Food Network’s Bobby Flay in one of his “Throwdowns” so I ordered the dish that Lynn competed with - The Kentucky Farmhouse Scramble. The dish consists of three “fluffy” eggs scrambled with country ham, roasted red peppers and Jarlsberg cheese made in Austin, Kentucky (and here I always thought that Jarlsberg cheese was made in Jarlsberg – wherever that is).

The eggs are served with tobacco onions, which are called that because they’re thinly sliced onion pieces which, after they’re fried, look like loose tobacco. Also on the plate were fried green tomatoes and terrific buttermilk biscuits. The biscuits were made in a pan rather than individually and were really high, light, airy and especially delicious slathered with honey-sweetened sorghum butter. (Hmm….‘fraid I’m not sure what sorghum is – sorry!)

The entire trip was absolutely incredible! I loved the local cuisine, the beautiful and historic Old Louisville District and most of all, teaching my omelet tricks to the folks in the B&B industry.

Speaking of incredible places and people…I almost forgot to tell you about a contest being held by America’s egg farmers (the folks I work with).  They’re looking for the next incredible person! You can visit www.IncredibleEgg.org to upload a video of you or your child’s extraordinary body or mind skill and have a chance to appear in an incredible, edible egg ad, receive free eggs and donate to a local food bank! What are you waiting for? I know there are incredible people out there!