Egg Pie

A true story

This isn’t how I planned to spend my day. I was approaching a staging project deadline, and planned to do some research for another client when I heard the door knock. It was my five year old neighbor. He usually visits around 7-7:30 but today he decided 9 would be better.

In the back of my mind I wondered if this wasn’t supposed to be lesson time at home-school but I figured, if so, they’ll holler for him. It was no good to ask him. The kid rarely offers the whole truth, a habit I find both perfectly predictable and devilishly cleaver. That, coupled with an adorably bright-eyed giggle as he jumped up and down as I spotted him, softened my reserve and I delightfully answered to let him in.

After raiding the candy basket, we conduct our recurring dialogue. He must be developing his conversational skills because he is very deliberate with his first question.

“How are you today?”

“I am fine. A little busy working this morning. How are you?”

“i’m good.”

Now here is the critical juncture. Unless I take this dialogue somewhere further, my little friend is going to have exhausted his prepared statements and hit the repeat button. I give it a minute or two just to test it out, then decide to pick up a book. Uh oh. He hits the brakes and looks around for an exit.

“Have you read this one” I ask, holding up a Dr Seuss story.

“Nah. Let’s look at your birthday cards.” He quickly deflects. Books aren’t his thing and we both know it. So I watch as he rifles through a large pile of opened birthday cards on the coffee table and hands them to me one by one to read aloud. I read and he repeats after me, then laughs at the silly picture of a pug with google-eyes. Of course, it’s the one he bought me. We both laugh as he shakes the card to make the dogs eyes wiggle about. We read another one, and another. Before long, we’ve read them all and I get up to vacuum. Again, not on my plan but the rug needs it and I’m not getting my work done so at least I’ll be productive.

As I vacuum, he moves stuff around so I get under it. I appreciate the help and tell him so. Somehow the conversation leads to numbers and we count to 100, me odd, him even. I get the feeling he doesn’t like to concentrate for long periods, so we make it a game as we vacuum.

He asks me how many chickens I have and we discuss their names. He suggests we check the coop for eggs but I had already completed that chore so I showed him the big bowl of eggs.

“Hmmm, I need to make some quiches with all these eggs.” I said. “Wanna help?”

Shooting me a quizzical look, I realize he doesn’t know the word quiche, so I say “quiche, you know, egg pie. Wanna help me make an egg pie?”

“Yeah.”

He runs to wash his hands and brings the foot stool to the kitchen. I manage to find an apron small enough to accommodate him and we get to work.

Generally, I’m a very quick cook, but cooking with a five year old triples prep time. I don’t really care. We’re having fun gathering the ingredients and he’s eager to learn how to make something so I teach him how to crack an egg.

Cracking an egg is hard work for little hands. He is hesitant to hit it too hard against the metal bowl and I resist the urge to do it for him.

He does it a little harder the next time and the try after that. After about a dozen tries, I crack one hard as a demo and he goes back to his egg. This time he tries to go faster instead of harder, and eventually the repeated taps crack the shell. His face lights up as he registers his accomplishment and he proceeds to smash the shell to release the egg into the bowl. I hand him another egg, and another, and another. I grab a couple of duck eggs and we crack those too. Eight eggs later, I hand him the whisk and he goes to town.

“We need milk!” He declares and begins to list all the varieties we might use: soy, almond, oat…”

I go to the pantry and return with a small can of evaporated milk and he shoots me a furrowed eyebrow expression. When I explain it is just plain old milk, he continues to stare and I can see the wheels spinning in his mind.

“Cow” I say as I run the can under the electric opener and finally, upon seeing the white liquid spill out, he believes me.

As he whisks the milk into the eggs, I chop onions and celery, red and yellow peppers on the cutting board. We split a stalk of celery and he looks very proud of himself to be eating a vegetable, something he rarely volunteers to do. Apparently boys his age don’t eat vegetables or so someone told him and he believed it.

As the vegetables sauté we dash outside to pick the magic ingredient, fresh oregano. and then hurry back to the kitchen to rinse it and add it to the pan. He loves to hurry places and this is especially exciting for him.

I hand him a wooden spatula and stand back to watch him figure out how to push the veggies around the pan. For the next five minutes, I stand guard as his little body navigates this very hazardous task. In my head, I hear a dozen or more cautious statements that I resist from exiting my tongue.

“Don’t get too close. Watch out. Don’t let it burn. Watch your apron near the fire. Don’t stir them so fast….” Instead, I breathe deeply and remark about how good it smells to cook onions.

Once the cooking is completed, I breathe a sigh of relief and we turn to work on the pie crusts. This tactile exercise is fun and he squeals and laughs as we each shape our crusts in separate pans.

To mine I add spinach and to his some chopped ham. I let him add his own cheese cubes and watch as he forms little towers and train tracks with each cube. It dawns on me that this kid has an engineer’s mind and I make a mental note for future activities.

By the time we pour the egg batter into the pans and get them in the oven, I realize an hour has gone by. We rush to put up the food and clean off the counters before he has to go home.

I promise to walk the pie over once it’s done and we hang up his apron. He proudly runs across the street to tell his mom he made an egg pie that they can eat for lunch.

A few days later he tells me he didn’t eat the pie. When I ask why he reminds me that he doesn’t eat vegetables (at least not at his house) and I laugh to myself.

In a former life, I would have gotten upset about this, focusing on all the wasted ingredients. But at this age, I know that nothing was wasted. It was the best hour of the day for both of us.