Tao of Pauly

I Am the Eggman

By Pauly
Hollyweird, CA

I used to cook a fair amount when I lived by myself. I was never a master cook, but learned to cook basic things so I wouldn't starve to death. Lots of pasta and sandwiches. Since I started dating Nicky, she takes care of cooking duties when the opportunity arises. I'm more than happy to oblige since Nicky is top notch cook. I'm definitely a lucky guy. By now she knows what types of food make me happy and manages to cook around the fact that I despise vegetables.

She's been away in the South of France for almost a week and struggling to find cheap food in Monte Carlo. She left me in charge of the kitchen and I cooked for myself a couple of times. The highlight was dinner the other night, when I made the garlic and cheese tortellini with an arribiatta sauce with sauteed onions and mushrooms.

I also have been addicted to these shakes that I've been whipping up. I found organic chocolate ice cream at Whole Foods. I have been making chocolate shakes with skim milk and adding 3/4 of a banana. Unfuckin' real. I must take a photo the next time I make the shake. That has been the shining moment of the last two days. I won't make the shake until I'm done writing for the day. It's sort of my reward. Write for several hours. Rip a binger. Make a shake. Watch sports. And yes, I'm pantsless through the entire process. I had been pantsless and shirtless all weekend during the massive heat wave, but it's a bit chilly now and I can't walk around the apartment in just my boxers.

Sorry for the tangent. Back to my kitchen stories... the lowlight of Nicky leaving me to fend for myself was a nasty omelete that I tossed out in the trash. It was so abominable that even alley cats wouldn't touch it.

During one of the Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares episodes, he berated one of the sketchy chefs for not even knowing how to make a simple omelete. He said that's the first thing they teach you in cooking school and if he couldn't make that, he had no business being in the kitchen.

Only recently did I wake up to the glorious egg revolution in my life. For almost thirty years, I avoided eggs. I know, it's weird. As my mom once said, she fed me eggs when I was a baby. I threw them up in the crib and never ate them again. I just didn't like them and always thought they had no taste. I used to be strictly a bacon with pancakes or a French Toast kinda breakfast guy.

I have traveled a lot overseas he last few years where breakfast choices were limited. Eggs always seemed to be on the menu, so I started eating them out of desperation and desire to get protein since bacon in other countries was horrible slabs on uncooked ham.

I could cook a fried egg and scrambled eggs with ease. But I struggled with the omelete. I made three from scratch and I threw out all three. The last one was barely edible. Three strikes and I was out.

I made a fried egg instead because I was starving. Oh, and I cooked up a batch of turkey bacon that Nicky had bought. It's supposed to be a healthy alternative to bacon. What a fucking hoax! Serious, that's a cruel fuckin' joke. Turkey bacon was such a let down. If having real bacon is like having sex without a condom, then turkey bacon is like having sex with a welder's glove wrapped around your junk.

I can make pretty good French Toast but struggle with the omelete. Like most things in life, you need to gain experience and practice if you want to get better. My immediate goal is to be able to make an edible omelet before I move to Las Vegas and once I get there, my next goal is to perfect a specialty omelet before I leave.

And ten minutes into this post, I start to have an internal debate on the correct spelling of omelete. Or is it omelet. I like the extra 'e' it makes the word seem classier.

So my quest to make the perfect omelete begins. I ate some good ones over the last year or so. The Bellagio makes a pretty kick as smoked applewood bacon and cheese omelete. They also have their signature omelete that is made with Maine lobster. I don't dig on sea cockroaches, but Nicky has gotten it in the past and swears by it.

Nick's Coffeeshop around the corner makes a pretty tasty egg white omelete which I get with mushrooms and red onions. This past summer, I ate a mushroom and onion omelete at the cafe in the Palms casino at least twice a week.

The writing has been going decent the last couple of days. I'm slightly behind schedule, but I'm making progress and trimming the draft. I have at least two or three really good sections and that's important to me. I wish that the other material held up to those standards, but it's so hard to maintain that level of consistency.

I stopped writing just before 4pm on Wednesday so I could make a shake before the Yankees/Red Sox game and Game 4 of the Rangers/Devils hockey playoffs. The Rangers won and took a 3-1 lead. That game was fun to watch and I got flashbacks of watching the Rangers/Devils series on Jerry and Singer and Rib's couch in Atlanta when the Rangers made their Stanley Cup run in 1994. We'd get shitfaced watching the games and then play poker until sunrise. Good old days.

I had so much fun those nights gambling and joking around and getting hammered and getting the girls across the hall hooked on playing poker and being stoned when Rib's three-legged cat hobbled through the living room and listening to Dead bootlegs when we played and how Dutch was cash poor and he had to use Dutch Bucks to play which were IOUs on yellow post-it notes that our friends actually exchanged with one another as a legit form of currency.

Anyway, the Rangers are one game away from advancing to Round 2 of the playoffs, while the lowly NY Knicks ended the season with a franchise low of 59 losses. Unacceptable. I'm ashamed to be a Knicks fan. At least there's one winning team playing in Madison Square Garden these days.

The Yankees and Red Sox had another one of those four hour slugfests. I think the final was 15-9, but it was fun to watch the Yanks beat up on the Sox, especially on ESPN. I have a running bet with Senor. We're gambling heads up on every Yankees and Red Sox game. The season series is tied at 2-2, so right now we're even and no one owes money.

I have about 42 hours left of being alone before Nicky comes home. I have a ton of writing to do and I better get to it.