The American Egg Board and I are hosting a group on Gather.com called the “Incredible” group. We want incredible people to come to the group and tell us what they, or someone they know, are doing to inspire others to eat more healthfully.

The American Egg Board began celebrating America’s incredible healthy eating role models this year through a partnership with the “Rachael Ray Show.” Since January, 13 Americans who are working to help kids and families eat more healthfully have shared their inspirational stories – from using dogs to help kids lose weight to teaching kids how to grow and cook their own food in a garden – on the “Rachael Ray Show” during a segment entitled “Incredible People.” You can watch the last “Incredible People” episode of the “Rachael Ray Show” tomorrow on July 30!

We know that the amazing people on the “Rachael Ray Show” aren’t the only people inspiring others – whether it’s family, neighbors, friends, students or co-workers – to eat better. That’s why we want to hear from you over at the “Incredible” group on Gather.com! Maybe you’re a teacher who started a garden at your school so students could grow their own vegetables. Or maybe your best friend makes sure her kids get a good breakfast every morning before school, no matter how crazy the house is. I think that’s pretty incredible.

So please share your stories about people who are inspiring others to eat more healthfully!

…was so hot that the only time I moved around was to give my omelet program. I gave three of these programs during my two day visit to Harrington, DE, home of the fair. Temperatures hovered in the 90 to 98-degree range with the humidity hovering around there too. But, when I give my demonstrations I don’t notice anything beyond the last omelet I cooked, the one I’m cooking, and the next one I’ll cook. I am so passionate about my omelets that I’m in my own “Omelet World” while I’m giving my program and the temperature there – like everything else in my own “Omelet World” – is very pleasant.

Despite the heat, the crowds at the fair were excellent! Officials said that attendance was on par with last year’s, and the temperature then was in the 70’s.

At the fair I presented my usual repertoire of different omelets, but because I was hosted by the Delaware Department of Agriculture I used only locally grown produce and locally processed food products throughout. Getting them was no easy matter. Anne Fitzgerald, from the Secretary of Agriculture’s office, took me from supermarket to supermarket and produce stand to produce stand, until every tomato, zucchini, dill sprig, pepper, onion, sausage link, crab, etc. etc. was born and raised in Delaware. Glad we did that. These omelet ingredients were the freshest they could be and I could tell it in the taste.

Since crabmeat is a big part of Delaware’s agriculture picture, Anne suggested we work on a crabmeat omelet to include in the demonstration. So, one morning before the fair gates opened to the public, Anne, Judith Leith, another Agriculture Department staff member, and I arrived at our demonstration venue to work on this new culinary creation. We tried the delicately flavored lump crabmeat with several different accompaniments and found a real winner. While crabmeat tends to be pricier than other omelet filling ingredients, it’s a good thing eggs are so inexpensive and can absorb the cost difference.  Below is a recipe for our new omelet. It’s absolutely delicious! Oh and did I mention that I was interviewed by the Delaware newspaper? Check out the article here!

DELAWARE CRABMEAT OMELET
1 tbsp. butter
1/3 cup of lump crabmeat
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of water
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh dill plus dill for garnish
1/3 cup of shredded Swiss cheese

In a medium-high heated 10-inch coated frying pan, lightly sauté the crabmeat in the butter.

Whisk together the eggs, water and seasoning. Add that mixture to the pan.

When the egg sets, draw the cooked egg from the perimeter of the pan toward the center with a spatula, while simultaneously tilting the pan so that raw egg flows on the pan surface you’ve just exposed. Do that all around the pan for about 20 seconds until there’s no more runny egg but it’s still very moist on top, always keeping the entire bottom of the pan covered with the egg.

Sprinkle the cheese and dill all over the top. Fold the omelet in half and invert it so it falls upside down on a plate. Garnish with more dill.

I have 32 magazine food editors that I stay in touch with regularly in order to try to influence them to feature recipes using eggs on their food pages. These are not only culinary magazines, but lifestyle publications that pertain to everything about the home and the family. All of these magazines have a food section in every issue, and I go through each magazine’s every issue to see how eggs are being presented to their readers. Three times a year, I summarize my findings. Here are examples of how eggs were used in magazines from March through June. They were featured 59 times in 27 national magazines during that period!

The May issue of Good Housekeeping featured “Eggs Over Easy” in their food pages, 11 recipes using a total of 53 eggs! Other all-egg features were in Cuisine at Home, Quick & Simple, Bon Appetit and Martha Stewart Living.

Omelets were featured in various magazines. We had a puffy mushroom omelet in Quick & Simple, a farmer’s omelet filled with all manners of veggies in Everyday with Rachael Ray, a Spanish omelet with potatoes and chorizo in Real Simple and a really low-cal, low-fat tomato, basil and cheese omelet in Weight Watchers.

Simple scrambled eggs were transformed 10 ways in Better Homes & Gardens, done skillet dinner style in Country Home, made into Eggs Benedict in Eating Well, mixed with cheese and veggies so a kid can do it in Parenting and there was scrambled eggs with curry leaves in Gourmet.

Of course there were lots of frittatas of all kinds. And there were simple fried eggs on everything from spinach to corned beef hash to red flannel hash. Souffles, too. And, quiches. There was a spinach and gruyere cheese quiche, a quiche filled with cheese and hash brown potatoes, spinach, broccoli and ham quiches, a turkey and cheddar quiche, an asparagus quiche and, of course, a classic quiche Lorraine.

I LOVE QUICHES! I love them because they’re so easy to make and, as you can see from the array of fillings that showed up in the magazines, they’re oh, so versatile. My favorite quiche is one I call “Sudden Quiche” because it comes together so incredibly easily. I’ve written about it before and I urge you to try it. You’ll be amazed. So will the people you serve it to.

SUDDEN QUICHE
-1 9-inch deep dish frozen pie shell – or – refrigerated pie crust lining a 9-inch deep dish pie plate
-2 cups of filling*
-6 eggs
-1 cup half & half or whole milk or 2% milk depending on how rich you want the custard
½-teaspoon seasoning (salt, pepper, tobasco, herbs)

Blind bake the pie shell: pierce it all around with a fork then bake in a 425 F-degree oven for about 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and reduce oven temperature to 350 F.

In a bowl beat together everything else and pour it into the pie shell. Bake about 40-minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing. What could be easier?

*For filling, use any kind of shredded cheeses, any kind of diced, drained cooked vegetables, diced ham, pre-fried bacon, seafood or poultry in any combination that sounds good to you. Sky’s the limit.

Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about cooking eggs, along comes the food staff from Australia’s most popular culinary magazine Gourmet Traveler with startling information. In Australia you can poach eggs in plastic wrap! You heard right. Plastic wrap.

But don’t do it in this country (see below).

I was on a media tour through Australia a couple weeks ago and it was all about omelets because, well, that’s what I’m all about. Until one day. I met with the food staff of Gourmet Traveler magazine. The editor saw my omelet show at a media event set up by the Australia Egg Corporation (that country’s equivalent of my American Egg Board) and invited me to visit the magazine offices. I graciously accepted the offer. There I sat with 15 foodies and all we talked about was eggs.
    
I mentioned that I thought that Americans weren’t as comfortable with poaching eggs as they might be, which is why we developed the “steam poaching” method (eggs are broken open into a skillet with a tablespoon of water, covered with a tight fitting lid and cooked for about 5 minutes as they’re basted with steam generated by the water). “Not bad” said the Aussies. “But we have an even better, maybe simpler method.”
    
Eggs poached in plastic wrap is an innovation which, if there was a Nobel Prize for food tricks, would walk away with the award, even if it is potentially dangerous to your health. Coincidentally, the technique is published in the latest editon of Australia’s Gourmet Traveler magazine. The trouble is that while the method is very cool, it’s potentially unsafe. Experts tell me that basic plastic wrap isn’t made for those levels of heat and, when heated, can melt or emit chemicals into the eggs. So, it’s totally not recommended. But, it’s a quirky concept that I thought you’d like to read about, so here it is, verbatim from the July issue of the magazine:
     
Eggs Poached in Plastic Wrap
Line a coffee cup with plastic wrap and brush the plastic wrap with a little olive oil. Crack an egg into the cup, gather the plastic wrap so the egg is completely wrapped, then twist plastic to secure. Remove from cup and set aside. Repeat with remaining eggs. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add prepared eggs and cook to your liking (7-8 minutes for soft poached). Chill completely in iced water.

It’s was a whirlwind 5 days in New Zealand as I traveled the country, top to bottom, teaching the Kiwis my speedy American style of omelet making. The New Zealand egg industry invited me there to do that and it was a terrific experience.

Most New Zealanders, I learned, make their omelets by putting the eggs in a pan with the filling ingredients on top, then they just let it sit over a low fire until it all sets up into a big egg pancake. The eggs get so tough that it’s like eating leather. Boy, did they need me!

I started in Auckland, the capital city on the north island. In Auckland I went on the country’s television food channel teaching my 40-second technique on a program hosted by a popular — and very pretty — chef. We cooked various omelets side by side and I finished the segment with my flaming fruit omelet, which stole the show. Also, I went to the offices of Essentially Food magazine, the most popular culinary publication there, and gave my demonstration to the staff. They’re doing a feature on me and my omelets, quoting my answers to egg questions posed by the magazine’s editor-in-chief. After the demonstration I invited staff members to have their hand at this “new” technique and the result was wonderful. While there I also did segments on two radio programs where I cooked omelets on the air.

Moving south, my next stop was Christchurch. I went to a culinary school and gave my omelet show to students and chef instructors while the local television station covered the event really extensively. They filmed my entire program! I wonder how much of it ended up on the air. The local newspaper food editor also showed up with a photographer and I’m waiting to see a clipping of what she writes.

Moving further south… down to the bottom of the southern island — next stop Antarctica! — Dunedin reminded me very much of my visit to Scotland last year, with rolling green hills filled with flocks of sheep and a very chilly temperature. There I prepared omelets for lunch for folks who came to the local homeless shelter. That event was covered by the local newspaper and the local tv station. I also cooked omelets on the radio there.

I’m on my way to Australia now to cook omelets there. Stay tuned.