When it’s a “pancake” omelet, that’s when. That’s what they call their pastrami and/or corned beef omelet at the Carnegie Deli in New York. If you don’t know, Carnegie Deli is New York City’s premiere deli, which is saying a lot considering the city has a deli on almost every block. I went there for breakfast with Debbie Goldsmith, the Associate Director of Food from Good Housekeeping magazine. Naturally, we talked omelets. We observed that there seems to be a fine line between an omelet, a frittata and the kind of “pancake” omelet we enjoyed that morning. Here’s what we came up with:

A “French Omelet” is a kind of egg pancake into which filling is put (and what most people might consider a standard omelet). The filling is separate from the egg and that’s what makes it French style. The egg is rolled or folded over the filling and flipped onto a plate. Voila!

A “Denver/Western Omelet” – America’s favorite – is where the filling is put into the frying pan and flash-fried first. Then the egg is added and a pancake made from that egg which now has the filling ingredients imbedded in it. Because you can’t fry cheese, the cheese is added just before the omelet is rolled or folded and flipped onto a plate. Sometimes I call this a “confetti omelet” because the colorful ingredient that are imbedded in the egg show through.  

A Carnegie Deli “Pancake Omelet” is made just like a Denver/Western omelet, but before it’s served, it’s flipped over upside down and cooked a little more. The omelet is served by sliding it out of the pan onto the plate with its bottom side up. It’s round. Like a pancake.

A frittata – if we’re not mistaken – is made like a French style omelet, with the egg cooked to a point where it’s very moist on top. The filling is then sprinkled all over the top of the moist egg pancake and finished-off under the broiler so it’s somewhat crisp on top.

One last thought based on my trip to Carnegie Deli… when I make what I call an Omelet Lorraine, a French style omelet with white wine added to the egg and filled with Gruyere cheese and bacon, I always serve it with a dollop of Dijon mustard. Apparently I am not alone. When we were served our pastrami and corned beef pancake omelets at the Carnegie Deli, they were served with a deli brown mustard. Mustard? With an omelet? I guess that depends on what’s inside the omelet. In the Midwest where I grew up, most of the folks I knew put ketchup on their omelets. Here in New York City…never! But mustard’s okay. Go figure!

It’s National Egg Month, a perfect time to share easy (and affordable!) egg recipes. Here is a video demonstration of how to make an Asian-inspired frittata using everyone’s favorite penny-pinching food (other than eggs, of course), Ramen Noodles! Maybe I should have saved this one for World Egg Day, which is October 10. I’ll cover more internationally-inspired egg dishes then. Enjoy!

Last month I went to Montgomery, Alabama to cook my omelets. At suppertime my hosts asked me if I wanted to go to a real Southern fish fry buffet in Millbrook, a suburb of Montgomery about 15-minutes from midtown. Wow! I wouldn’t miss it. But I had no idea whatsoever what I was going to be subjecting my arteries to.

To start, we enjoyed the best seafood gumbo any of us – we agreed – had ever had. One of the group mentioned that the gumbo base was tomato and not authentic roux, but I think she was just showing off. I later regretted having gone back for gumbo refills. It affected the quantity of the rest of the seafood buffet selections I would consume.

I had, for the first time, something called West Indies Salad. It was crabmeat that was marinated overnight (at least) with vinegar, sugar and a ton of Vidalia onion slices. I thought it would make a terrific omelet filling. Unlike almost everything else, it wasn’t fried. Neither were cooked-to-death green beans or cole slaw. Or a delicious shrimp creole. But the rest of the menu was right from the oil:

Fried shrimp

Fried oysters

Fried chicken

Fried catfish

Fried flounder

Fried hushpuppies

Fried Surimi

Fried okra

Fried dill pickle slices (!)

French fries

Fried stuffed crab

To be sure, it was a totally “Pigout Heaven” meal. I couldn’t move when the rest of the group got up to get dessert. So they brought it to me…vanilla wafer cookies smothered under spoonfuls of soupy chocolate pudding. Just when I thought I couldn’t consume another thing, I found that I could not pass up this weird dessert concoction.

My rationale for eating all of the stuff with abandon was that it’s a once-a-year meal. I can’t wait till next year.

Last week I had a whole week in New York. No place to travel to. So, I was able to catch-up on visits with my magazine food editor friends. And I had a good reason to take up their time. I’m busy helping the American Egg Board with its “Search for America’s Worst Cook)” contest – we’re on a quest for a kitchen klutz (I’m calling them “culinarily handicapped”) who could really use some help getting their mealtime act together.

Go to www.AmericasWorstCook.com and get the information for yourself, or, you can enter someone you know who needs some culinary help. The prize is super. The winner will be featured in an American Egg Board advertisement, plus win a trip with a guest to New York for a “culinary makeover,” including cooking school classes and, if they want, dinner with me!

So last week I visited the test kitchens of Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, All You, Martha Stewart Everyday Food and Everyday with Rachael Ray magazines. Not a bad gig because along the way I sample whatever’s cookin’ in the kitchen. Also, we catch up on industry gossip. And I’ve got appointments with Food & Wine, Quick & Simple and Real Simple magazines coming up. Real Simple has a new food editor and I look forward to wishing her well. She comes from Everyday Food.

I also hyped the Worst Cook contest with Babs Chernitz, the food editor of Redbook magazine, but that was over a lunch table at a brand new restaurant that opened this week directly across the street from my 55^th Street apartment. Tres chic. The restaurant is called Benoit (pronounced Ben-wah) and was opened by celebrity chef Alain Ducasse, France’s multi-star winning export to New York. Even though the name and the white table ambiance is very elegant, the prices are surprisingly low for such a haute pedigree.

Babs and I ate well for eighty bucks. There were many service hiccups and some communication problems with the staff, but we enjoyed ourselves and the meal a lot. Besides, I’d rather eat French food than any other kind (I know, Italian rules, but not with me).

Babs and I gave a tip o’ the hat to the American Egg Board by both ordering an egg appetizer. It’s listed on the menu as “Egg Mayonnaise” and that’s precisely what it is. A perfectly hard cooked egg cut in half, one half filled with the yolk mixed with awesomely rich home made mayonnaise deviled egg style, the other half simply presented yolk side down in a puddle of that same awesomely rich home made mayonnaise. Incredible! And only one dollar. A buck. Sooo worth it.

The “Egg Mayonnaise” called attention to how fabulous home made mayo is versus the stuff in a jar. The American Egg Board has this recipe for “cooked” mayonnaise (so you don’t run into any food safety issues). This recipe is not only safe, it, too, is incredible!

COOKED MAYONNAISE – makes about 1-1/4 cups

• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons vinegar or lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• ½ teaspoon salt
• Dash pepper
• 1 cup cooking oil

In a small saucepan, stir together egg yolks, vinegar, water, sugar, mustard, salt and pepper until throughly blended.

Cook over very low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture bubbles in 1 or 2 places. Remove from heat.

Let stand for 4 minutes. Pour into blender container. Cover and blend at high speed.

While blending, very slowly add oil. Blend until thick and smooth.

Occasionally, turn off blender and scrape down sides of container with a rubber spatula.

Cover and chill.

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.