Click here to jump to recipe.

Otherwise, notice the tippy milk crates stacked two-high under your five-year-old feet, the white chef’s apron knotted behind your neck, draping down past your shoes, between you and the oven door of the ten-burner stove in your grandfather’s diner, the two flats of eggs, thirty to a flat, ready for you and the egg and parsley fritters you’ll sneak pieces of later under your grandfather’s approving wink, those back burners turned off so the eggs don’t overheat, the giant frying pan heating a half-inch of olive oil in front of you, the deep hum of the hood fan overhead, the whoosh of the gas flame below, the cook reaching for the sumac seasoning over your shoulder, rapidly whisking the Ejje batter with a clack clack clack, her big bust filling her apron, her strong arms clearing pots and pans away from the stove, shaking her head, muttering in Arabic, the heat from the stove making you sweat, overheating your thighs, too close to the flat stainless steel edge, as your grandfather’s voice chides the cook in good natured humor to “let her try,” as his left arm reaches for an egg and hands it to you, as he says, “Ready, ya eine, light of my eye?” as his right arm surrounds you, holds you up, and keeps you safe.

 

Cooking time: 1-2 minutes

 

Ingredients:

Olive Oil

Eggs at room temperature for flowing whites

Salt & Pepper

 

Directions:

Heat a half-inch of olive oil in a pan until just before smoking hot.

Break egg into the oil from as high up as you can without breaking the yolk, compelling the white to spread out as thinly as possible. With a large spoon, scoop the hot oil over the egg. Cook the yolk to desired doneness as the egg white turns brown and crisp at the edges, the oil crackling and sizzling, starting to smoke, filling the diner with the smell of your history across the ocean. Of your ancestors. Of the old country, where you might have belonged, once, but now you’re just an immigrant kid who belongs nowhere except in the kitchen, right now.

Season with salt and pepper.

 

Additional Notes:

Your grandfather will chase the protesting cook away when you waste the first five eggs by breaking the yolks. Then the seventh. Then the eighth, tenth, and eleventh.

Your grandfather will celebrate when you create two perfect eggs with runny yolks and brown, crispy edges, the best he’s ever had, he tells you.

Your grandfather will lift you off the milk crates and put a cool rag on your thighs when he notices the burns from the splashing oil. “Why didn’t you tell me, eine? Oh, you’re such a good cook! You really wanted to learn!”

Your grandfather will tell his diner customers to leave you alone when you crank up the jukebox using the control hidden behind the counter, the small knob too tantalizing for a five-year-old to resist. He’ll give them free pie, maybe. Or he’ll reach over the two-sided napkin holder and glass sugar dispenser to give them a refill of coffee, pouring first low, then lifting high above the cup as if he’s holding a brass dallah pot aerating thick, cardamom-scented qahwa coffee.

You will hug your grandfather’s leg when it’s time to go home, stretching one hand to play with his tie clip, looking up at his crinkling, smiling eyes, past his shirt pocket filled with pens and a little green order pad. He will promise that you can come back the following weekend to try again, and he’ll have sixty more eggs waiting for you.

But your grandfather will die that week, and each tear you shed will burn like the drops of hot oil that splashed on your skin when he held you safe.

___

Marjie Alonso is a former executive director of small international nonprofits, where she promoted evidence-based education, developed professional standards, and acted as a “civilian-to-scientist” facilitator in all things animal behavior and training. Marjie has just completed a memoir about taking her sons to meet their birth mothers in Paraguay and a reckoning with the impact of adoption, and is querying agents. She writes a weekly Substack and essays for publication.

Artwork by Shelley Lennox Whitehead