You can boil, fry, scramble or poach them. I like poached best but the process sets me on edge and it makes sense to turn to Mrs BB, the household’s ace poacher. I’d prefer to do it myself, but without hassle.
Yes, there’s a pan thing with detachable saucers but the result is not a poached egg. Baked, perhaps, or steamed. Time for technological ratiocination. I concluded I needed a bun tin with a separable bottom. Paying for this at Cooks Galley in Abergavenny I mentioned the reason. “Haven’t you heard of this?” they said. This was was a floppy plastic simulation of the outer petals of a water lily: Eddington’s Poach Perfect, £5.95 a pair. Does what it says it does. Hope I haven’t rediscovered the wheel.
LET’S HEAR IT FOR LIFE Physics gets a regular work-out on our minority appeal TV channels, biology less so. That’s why I grabbed the three-part series, The Cell, with both hands (Plutarch has already posted on the first installment). The disadvantage with physics is that, at particle level, it’s theory and maths; biology is the visible world. Installment two took us up to the thrill of the double helix, but setting everything beautifully in context.
Together with poignant support for Newton’s tribute to Descartes: “If I have seen further it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” Cell division was visible microscopically in 1875 but not understood. Nevertheless the viewer recorded, in pen and ink, the migration of stick-like things to either end of the cell. Now we know these sticks are chromosomes and video cameras record the moving process – exactly like those nineteenth-century drawings showed. The eye of the scientist and the eye of the artist: both wonderful
Yes, there’s a pan thing with detachable saucers but the result is not a poached egg. Baked, perhaps, or steamed. Time for technological ratiocination. I concluded I needed a bun tin with a separable bottom. Paying for this at Cooks Galley in Abergavenny I mentioned the reason. “Haven’t you heard of this?” they said. This was was a floppy plastic simulation of the outer petals of a water lily: Eddington’s Poach Perfect, £5.95 a pair. Does what it says it does. Hope I haven’t rediscovered the wheel.
LET’S HEAR IT FOR LIFE Physics gets a regular work-out on our minority appeal TV channels, biology less so. That’s why I grabbed the three-part series, The Cell, with both hands (Plutarch has already posted on the first installment). The disadvantage with physics is that, at particle level, it’s theory and maths; biology is the visible world. Installment two took us up to the thrill of the double helix, but setting everything beautifully in context.
Together with poignant support for Newton’s tribute to Descartes: “If I have seen further it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” Cell division was visible microscopically in 1875 but not understood. Nevertheless the viewer recorded, in pen and ink, the migration of stick-like things to either end of the cell. Now we know these sticks are chromosomes and video cameras record the moving process – exactly like those nineteenth-century drawings showed. The eye of the scientist and the eye of the artist: both wonderful
6 comments:
What fascinated me most of all was the discovery which leads us to believe that life on earth started from a single cell, a common ancestor for all of us, a mere 4 billion years ago.
Please don't "rediscover the wheel". This is one of the most popular 'numbers' in the version of (illicit)bingo we play during never ending meetings here in the Prison. It goes with "nailing jelly to the wall", "having a brain dump" and "blue sky moments". All horrible. (I won't give the name of the version of bingo we play as it's a bit rude)
I thought you hadn't cut those yellow zig zags yourself.
I love that grey area betwixt art and science as much as I love a hard-boiled egg (9 minutes and a smidge).
Oh, and a German-speaking friend just told me that German words are too long to abbreviate. Don't believe him!
John of Salisbury said that about the giants' shoulders first, you know!
I was just looking at those silicone egg poachers in the Lakeland catalogue; the perfect poached egg always eludes me. I like the real ones done straight in water, but they're only any good one at a time, and, as you say, are risky. I don't mind the ones done in the egg poacher cups, but always overcook them. I may have to try the water lilies. And they are very pretty and won't take up too much cupboard space...
Plutarch: The single cell - yes, I liked that. The inescapable brother/sisterhood,
OS: Your message is presently being decoded.
Sir Hugh: Other than decoration, I'm unaware of their function. I may cut them off.
Zu Schwer: That's a very hard, hard boiled egg. Tough on eggs, tough on the causes of eggs.
Lucy: The result is a genuine poached egg (ie, wettish, whereas the one from a cup is dryer).
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