Pasta has been heavily used on the latest menu in my kitchen; whether it’s with chicken or chicken. On the day of my weekly shop, I figured it was time to try something new and to break the mould. At the time of me saying that, I was standing in a new isle of the shop, one that I had never thought about walking down. I put my shopping basket down on the floor and scrunched a post-it note with my shopping list on into my pocket. My hands reached up to the shelf for a box of eggs.

I have never ever cooked eggs before, only ever watching my mum as she baked cakes back at home. The box looked alright, I didn’t know what I was looking for but I had been told previously to ‘check them’. In the basket they went and they were soon joined by a packet of bacon and the rest of my shopping.

I walked my precious cargo home and stored the food away for later tonight; to the point where my stomach would be calling out for feeding. That time came, and it was time to turn the oven on.

I covered a baking tray in tin foil and opened the packet of bacon. It was a lot wider than expected and I could only fit a few rashers on, but it went straight into the oven for about twenty minutes. In the meantime, I had to cook my eggs. I quickly googled ‘cooking eggs’ and clicked on the first link that came up.

A load of cookery jargon faced me on the screen and I knew I wasn’t going to make sense of ounces of something and millilitres of another. I just wanted to cook the eggs to eat, not make a Michelin style dinner for the Ritz.

The bacon was shrinking in the oven and I knew it would only be a couple of minutes before it was ready. I stabbed the butter with a knife and flicked the lump onto a frying pan before whacking up the heat.

I carefully opened the box of eggs and took out victim number one. I only had six eggs, so I didn’t have a lot of scope for getting it wrong. A plate and a bowl were besides each other on the worktop, all I had to do was smash the shell and carefully empty the eggy bit onto the plate, according to a video on YouTube. On the video, it looked more like a gentle tap than anything, but when I tried it, nothing happened.

A little more force on the second time chipped the outer shell only a little bit. I knew if I used anymore force, it would smash completely but I managed to judge it right and the egg hit the plate successfully. I picked out a bit of the shell from the yolk and it was ready. The video then said about using two eggs per person, so I pulled out victim number two.

I wanted it over in one whack, so I did just that. Against the side of the bowl the shell went but instead of opening up nicely, it was smashed into smithereens with shell and egg going everywhere. It had managed to throw more shell into the plate, egg over my t-shirt and all over my arms, face and hair while also into my drink which was only a few inches to the side. The laptop, luckily survived. I threw what was remaining in my hands across the kitchen into the bin which was nearly four feet away.

Boom.

Hole in one.

I went for the third egg, but my hands were too slippery to pick it up. I quickly washed and dried them, and went for the egg again. The egg was slippery from the egg that was moments ago, on my hands, and it slipped from my fingers. Instinctively, my other hand went in to catch it, but only crushed it once again. My bacon was almost due and I didn’t want it going cold while I waited for my eggs.

Again, I threw my egg across the kitchen and into the bin before washing my hands for a second time. The fourth egg tapped against the side of the bowl and the contents onto the plate. I flicked the knob on the hob and began to

melt the butter. The second egg on the plate didn’t look like the first, it was breaking apart and I didn’t know how it would cook. Victim number five made its way to join its friends on the plate in one quick and easy thump against the bowl. When the butter was ready, my eggs slipped into the frying pan and began to cook.

Bloody hell.

My eggy top was sticking to my chest, so I quickly threw it over my head and onto the floor. I washed my hands again and found another one in my wardrobe before returning to the kitchen. A thin layer of smoke was rising from the oven as the bacon was burning. I turned off the power to the oven and pulled the baking tray from inside and threw it down on
I bought the frying pan over to the plate and launched the eggs out and onto my plate, watching them splatter across the meat already there. A couple of burned slices of toast were thrown on top and that was dinner.the worktop above. My hands burning as I looked around for the oven gloves. The egg was beginning to spit, so I turned down the heat on the hob as I put the bacon back onto the tray, and then onto a waiting plate.

Planning the meal for tomorrow, and I’ve decided that pasta and chicken would make a nice change…