"You're not taking any prisoners, huh?"

I looked up. "You're not taking any prisoners," Chef repeated with a bit of a grin. I gave him a quizzical look. "You're eating it all," he supplied. Oh. He was talking about the fact that I was sopping up every last bit of egg yolk from the Eggs Benedict on the plate in front of me. He was darn right I wasn't taking any prisoners, there was no discrimination here, everything on the plate was getting eaten.

Today was what some refer to as the "dreaded" Egg Day. I loved every single moment and dreaded none. Today is dreaded by some because there was a lot to do (11 different recipes to prepare, several that culminated into a single dish) and cooking an egg properly is not easy business (which I totally agree with). We prepared hard boiled, over easy, over medium, over hard, scrambled, and poached eggs. We made Hollandaise sauce for the Eggs Benedict, a royale (3 eggs: 1 c milk) which is just custard, and bread pudding. The royale was cooked to understand how protein cooks and what happens when it is overcooked. When protein is overcooked it undergoes a process called syneresis which is when the protein molecules seize up so tight they start squeezing out moisture and creating small air pockets in the protein product. This is why overcooked meat is dry because the protein has squeezed out all the moisture.

As I was walking my plate to the dish room tonight I realized that I can tell how I felt about a certain day depending on how much of my food I ate. We serve a portion of our food to Chef so he can grade us but he takes one bite (with a clean fork) and what's left on the plate we can eat, and often do. I was very disappointed with my knife cuts on Beef Vegetable Soup day, so I ate very little of that soup because it just didn't feel right. However, today was my best Hollandaise yet and my poached eggs came out beautifully, so I cleaned my plate. Food is meant to be celebrated and my food today felt worthy of celebration.