How To Boil an Egg – Rose Carrarini (Phaidon Press)

True confessions…I love to cook and I am pretty good at it.

I started my cooking “career” as a latch key kid, with two working parents and an absent, older sibling who didn’t do the best job of feeding me. So I learned pretty quickly that if I wanted to eat more than PB&J, I had to watch and learn and try my hand at cooking.

I wasn’t going to be firing up the grill or making full blown meals, so I started with simple things; grilled cheese sandwiches and as the marketing brand says, the incredible, edible egg. I quickly mastered everything egg. Egg salad. Scrambled eggs. Fried eggs. Omelets. If you egged me on, I could whip it up. Soon enough I became the breakfast master, knocking out plate after plate of egg dishes for family breakfasts, for tired parents after work and even larger family gatherings like camping trips.

I moved on to bigger and better dishes and feasts, but to be honest, while they are a cornerstone element to many of the favorite dishes I continue to crank out for family and friends, I never really gave a whole lot of consideration to the versatility of the egg, until I cracked open Rose Carrini’s new guide to everything egg, How To Boil an Egg.

Carrini is the co-founder of the bakery/restaurant, Rose Bakery and she does a wonderful job of laying out 84 simple yet delectable ways to turn the simple egg into breakfast, lunch or dinner masterpieces. Accompanying the easily executed recipes are the striking illustration by botanical artist Fiona Strickland, which makes for an interesting twist on the pre-canned food photos normally found in cookbooks.

Carrini tackles the age old question posed by the book’s title; if you’re wondering…for soft boiled bring the water to a boil first and gently lower in the eggs. The book runs the gamut new twists on breakfast favorites, to egg-centric baked goods and even soups and egg based sauces.

If you’re like me and you’re a fan of breakfast for dinner, How to Boil and Egg offers up a wide variety of both savory and sweet options. Even some of the easy to prepare choices give tried and true favorites a new twist; like Egg in the Middle which spins fried eggs and toast and you can even tell the kids Green Fried Eggs was inspired by Dr. Seuss and get them to eat spinach.

Whether you are a black belt egg master or a beginner, How To Boil an Egg offers up variety of easy to make dishes that will impress anyone you choose to serve them up to.