How Not To Cook: It Started With an Egg

How Not to Cook: Post 1

Throughout my middle school years, I had many insecurities about myself. I was constantly pushing my mother to buy me makeup, always worried about what to wear, but my biggest insecurity that I had was my weight. I hated how I big my thighs looked in leggings, and I hated being able to ask my friends if I could borrow clothes due to the fear of them not fitting. Motivated my skinny peers, I became determined to start working out and eating right and thinking, “How hard can this be?” I went to a gym with my mom, and one morning I woke up, determined to make breakfast. This was the morning that I discovered my hidden talent of being able to burn everything and anything.

Over-easy eggs, toast, and bacon. Should be pretty simple and easy to handle on my own. My mindset had always been that cooking is just one of those things anyone can do, I mean just follow the recipe and it’s all smooth sailing. I had never cooked bacon or eggs before, but I had watched my mom cook this simple breakfast before, so how bad could I really do? I grabbed a large pan and cranked the heat to “high,” setting the bacon strips along side each other. I figured that I would cook the bacon on one side first, then cook the other side. With bacon taken care of, I moved onto the eggs. I’d been wanting to cook eggs for the longest time, because I was sick of my mom making scrambled 24/7. As I cracked open my two eggs onto the pan (also set to high), I realized that my eggs were about to be very crunchy, considering that I over-broke (if that’s a thing) the shell and shells had fallen into the eggs. Turning my back for only a split second to retrieve a fork, I noticed that the shells were already cooking into the egg. Quickly, I assassinated my over-easy egg as I dug out shells, then went to flip the eggs. It was at this moment that I realized how badly I screwed up, considering that I didn’t spray the pan or anything to prevent the eggs from sticking. As I scrapped away at my egg, I popped open the yoke, and began to frantically attempt to stop the yoke from getting everywhere. I finally managed to stop the yoke, and proceeded to flip my eggs. I was attempting to make over-easy eggs, and because of this I needed toast with my eggs. First checking in on my phone, I then grabbed two slices and popped them in the toast, suddenly smelling something burning. My bacon was literally up in smoke. I grabbed the pan and tossed it onto the counter, because not only was my bacon smoking, but my eggs looked like they could be compared to charcoal. As if my breakfast wasn’t already going fantastic, the smoke detector sounded off, as if it had just been waiting for that peek moment. I felt defeated as used the door to my basement to fan out my smoke-filled kitchen, trying to get the alarm to turn off. I had burned everything, the bacon, the eggs, and… wait, where’s the toast? I sprinted over to my toaster and hit cancel, and I was welcomed by two of the most burnt pieces of toast I had ever seen, so toasted that I was scared to grab them and have them turn to ashes. At this point, things couldn’t go worse. Everything I cooked was burnt to practically ashes, and my house almost had been too. Apparently, I spoke too soon and sunk to the kitchen floor in tears after I realized that I hadn’t put the pan of bacon just on the counter. I had thrown the pan onto of a plastic cutting board, which had melted to the pan of extra-crispy bacon and melted a hole in the board. From this experience, I learned several important basic cooking facts. One, also spray your pans that you’re using, and I later learned that butter works the best to keep eggs from sticking. Two, you’re more than likely not supposed to cook whatever you’re cooking right away on high, especially eggs and bacon. Three, flip bacon throughout cooking on a pan, using on medium heat. Four, have a timer on your toast, and try not to forget what you’re making in the first place. Finally, always have oven mitts to set pans on, don’t just throw them on the counter. Even though I learned a lot from this experience, I didn’t know at that moment that those first few victims of my cooking skills were not my last, hence the beginning of, “How Not to Cook.”