How Do You Crack an Egg
And does it mean something?
I love to bake. Give me a challenging recipe, and I will stick with it. I will imagine tasting my pastry-in-the-making and smile as I say to myself, “You got this, and it’s got you.”
But there is one part that I don’t have down: the simple cracking of an egg.
I should be able to do this, but I am completely inept when it comes to cracking the egg. I think the problem is that I am too gentle, and it results in cracks and “microshells” that infiltrate my otherwise perfect dessert-in-the-making.
I even bought a tool to help me. It is a simple, oval-shaped, shallow surface with a line down the middle. Supposedly, if I firmly bang the egg across the line, a perfectly broken shell will result.
Not…
I am now adjusting my strategy to hitting the egg surface against the lip of a cup with more force. Yep, I am going for a solid whack!
The jury is still out on whether I’ve conquered the problem (note: I use “conquer” because I am feeling full of force as I proceed with my new egg-cracking strategy).
While the jury decides, though, I have been ruminating on whether the gentle egg-cracking technique speaks to a bigger “personality challenge” I have.
My personality challenge (maybe)
I like to hedge. I like to always find the middle ground. I like smooth versus fiery. I like gentle, which can sometimes border on being conciliatory.
Imagine you and your partner are fighting over a vacation you are planning, and your ideas couldn’t be more different. One of you wants an easy, quiet, nature-filled week of relaxation by the water with no major travel required. The other wants a cultural extravaganza in Europe with nightlife, museums, historical learning, and fine dining.
What do you do?
Me? I work to find an in-between place that might meet all our needs, more or less. Since we are based in New England, I would propose a trip to Montreal or Quebec as a substitute for Europe. We could drive to our destination and plan for some scenic stops along the way. I’d make sure there was some nice body of water.
Nobody would get everything, but everybody would get something.
In our younger family years, when I made dinner for my husband and kids, everyone thought they had a vote, and the votes were often different. I would end up making more dishes—chicken soup and beef cabbage soup—because I’d say to myself, “You can make everyone happy, so do it.”
Exploring the delicate line I walk
If I were a car, I’d be a hybrid.
As a writer, I like to write both fiction and non-fiction.
My friends are on all sides of every spectrum — religious, political, lifestyle, neurotypical and neuroatypical, loud and soft spoken — you name it.
When I was a young professional at Hewlett-Packard (HP), I knew I wanted to work at home on a reduced schedule after having our first child.
“But you’re a professional,” they said.
“Yes, and I am a mom, and I would like to be both.” It was 1989, and the official HR policy was that professionals had to work full time. For me, HP’s Medical Products Group was willing to pilot (their word choice) the first-ever flexible work schedule.
After agreeing to give it a try, the hardest part was figuring out how I could use my computer remotely. I had exactly one minute to enter a 12-digit code. If I goofed, I had to call the IT department and ask them to do a reset so I could try again.
Talk about hard!
My six-month pilot lasted 10 years, and others followed my lead. Eventually, I dropped the word “hedge” to describe my role because I didn’t want people thinking I wasn’t “all in.”
After thinking about how I crack eggs, maybe it’s time I retire the “hedge” word altogether.
Most people I know wouldn’t let their poor egg-cracking skills yield a rant about one’s personality. For a reason that is hard to pinpoint, those silly eggs remind me that I often land in the middle.
Is that good?
Mostly, I think it’s how I crack an egg. I go for gentle…careful…deliberate. But since I’ve recently been preoccupied with coming-of-age stories as a lifelong pursuit, I am prone to see everything through a prism of growth.
Even eggshells.
I will proceed with a firm whack and see how that translates to other areas of my life. Woah, self-discovery can be fun. My new favorite word might become “resolute.”
Those eggs have another hand coming!
In Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", the small-people kingdoms of Lilliput and Blefuscu are at war with each other because they cannot agree on which end of an egg is supposed to be cracked (supposedly a reference by Swift, a Catholic educator, to the religious doctrinal disputes between his church and the Protestants, or disputes between Protestant England and Catholic France).
Of course, when they try to adapt the book for movies and TV, they always leave the clever stuff like this out...
Jill, this made me laugh and nod. Who knew egg cracking could double as a life metaphor? I'm cheering for your next bold whack, both in baking and in being unapologetically you. 🥚✨