A lot happened during my 48-hour visit to my friends in Ohio. It included two television appearances, a program for staff at the Ohio State University Medical Center and a program for members attending the annual convention of the Ohio Dietetics Association.  There are so many wonderful messages about eggs to deliver. My hat’s off to Connie Cahill, a colleague of many – uh – decades(!) who set it all up for me!

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!