The tricky bit about dinner is, the truth. The truth is not necessarily that there are going to be happy people ready to help you. Or that there is plenty of time to cook exciting and delicious, memorable. Your people might be moody. There is no time to look for recipes from Brooklyn’s latest or to call your grandmother.
It can be a slippery road at that hour leading to decisions that aren’t good ones. For instance. If you have six people to feed, bigger is definitely better can take over. Here comes the movie:
You have about 20 minutes to get dinner on the table before certain family members start to leave and look for food somewhere else. You open the fridge and there is a box of eggs in there, a good piece of cheese and something that still looks a lot like salad. You think: a family frittata. And why not make one great big omelette?
The biggest frying pan you have is on the fire, not quite enough time to heat up all the way before the eggs went in and things start sticking pretty badly across the middle. The whole box of eggs is in the pan now, so there’s no going back. Your breathing has shortened, going no further than your sternum. The bottom of the frittata is definitely broken in more than one, and even many places. It has a solid inch of a dry sponge look and pools of yellow on the top still to cook. You think about taking the whole pan to the sink and using a turkey baster to get rid of whatever isn’t already done. You think about being the first one to find food elsewhere. You scream at whomever is closest, “We need toast! Why aren’t you toasting!” You decide there is no other option but to flip (the eggs.) You have no plate big enough to flip them on. The last scene is terrible. It’s that same feeling of smelling the smoke before you see it when the pies are on the bottom of the oven and the half cooked turkey is on the top. I don’t want to talk about it.
Get out the little pan. Point to the people you need, and give them their jobs. (salad, set the table, light the candles, drinks, crowd control.)
It takes about 4 minutes to make an omelette on a slow day. Lightly whisk 2 eggs together with a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper. Have a big bowl of grated cheese on the ready and if you’re really feeling it, sauteed mushrooms. When the pan is nice and hot give it a spill of beautiful olive oil, enough to coat the pan. Then add the eggs. Let them sit for about 20 seconds, then gently lift with a heat resistant rubber spatula, all around the edges, so that the loose egg on top, spills through to the bottom. When the top is still wet but not pooling, either flip in one swoop with the help of a metal spatula or fold one half over the other. After two seconds, slide it out of the pan. Keep the warm in a 200 degree oven while you make the rest.