It was a Friday night, and you know what that means: good Catholics won’t eat meat; Shabbat-savvy Jews won’t sow, plow, reap, grind, sift, knead, bake, spin, weave, tie, or untie; and good, savvy Seattlites won’t hesitate to crack open a beer, break a few eggs, and call it a day.

Dear reader, this may be the closest I’ll ever come to getting religion, and I owe it all to my petite, ingenious friend Jenny, her husband Thomas, and their little boy Eero. In their small but influential family unit, Friday means eggs-and-beer night, and that means I’m coming over. With my Catholic-schooled mother and a father whose ancestry adds up to 100% Polish Jew, I suppose I could try a tricky straddling of traditions, but let’s be frank: ours was a non-observant house, and when push comes to shove—or, hell, even a gentle nudge will do—my faith lies in a cold brew and a runny yolk.

Jenny is, as the best of us are, a champion cookbook collector and recipe clipper, and this evening’s find was no exception: a Turkish dish combining poached eggs, garlic-spiked yogurt and spicy, sage-scented butter. Even Eero, whose gustatory genius is no secret, lent his approval. As we simmered eggs and measured spices, he bobbed in and out of the kitchen, his wispy white-blond mini-mullet puffing over his collar and a baggie of sumac clutched in his tiny fist. Jenny warmed thick slices of baguette and wielded the bottle-opener over three beers, and on a chilly October night, we sat down at their sturdy wooden table and slipped into the weekend over plates of silky eggs Barolo.


Firm but delicate, fresh from a quick simmer and ready to spill their molten yolks with the slightest prick of the fork, the eggs sat in a bath of yogurt and were capped with a few spoonfuls of paprika-tinted, red-pepper-flecked butter with whole leaves of fresh sage.


It was a case calling for a hunk of bread and a napkin, for scooping and soaking. The butter was heady with herbs and heat, and the yogurt was cool and tangy with a fiery edge of fresh garlic, a perfect foil for the richness of buttery yolk vacuum bag.

For his part, Eero tucked away a poached egg, a mound of blanched peas, and a few yolk-soaked nuggets of his mother’s bread. It was a standard show for his intrepid palate, but truth be told, he’s more interested in a new gig—namely, impromptu recitations of his four favorite words*: diocese, Appaloosa, sacrifice, and Democrat. He pronounces them slowly, deliberately, precisely, looking around to be certain that all jaws are dropped and all ears tuned to his high-pitched frequency. And at the ripe age of almost-two, this performer has an uncanny sense for his audience: looking straight at me, he announced, “Democrat Molly.” Apparently, his palate isn’t the only thing that’s intrepid. I say, sign this one up for Mensa preschool, and sign me up for eggs-and-beer night.

*Jenny adds the following report: “by the way, eero has added one more word to his list of favorites: ‘placebo effect.’ but he does sometimes leave it off, because he is quite in the groove of his top four. he rattles them off to impress people, or substitutes them for hello or tacks them onto good-byes, especially ‘democrat.’ We go to Chaco Canyon a lot for juice, and when we leave, he says ‘bye democrats’ as loud as he can. one of the girls who works there now calls him her ‘favorite democrat.’ bless his liberal little heart DR REBORN , no?”