How to make a boiled egg explode

Have you ever wondered what happens to a non-cooking bachelorette when left home alone and forced to cook for oneself? Well, let me tell you a story about pasta...

When I moved into the corp. apt. in DC on 03/02 - there was no food in the cabinets or fridge. But, the local Chinese food place had left an advertisement on my front door. So, guess what was for dinner the first and second night! The third night called for a taste on the town. And by the fifth day, it finally dawned on me to look inside of a Whole Foods bag that had been left on the kitchen counter for me. Turns out it was food, kind of:

• 2 packets of hot cocoa
• 1 packet of oatmeal
• 1 bag of Cheetos
• 2 waters
• 1 coca-cola
• 1 strawberry breakfast bar (death!)
• 1 snack pack of Fruity Snacks (death!)
• 100 calorie pack of cookies
• 1 snack pack of Oreos
• 1 bag of microwaveable popcorn
• 1 bottle of spaghetti sauce
• 1 box of whole grain rigatoni
• 2 packets of single serve sugar (no salt or pepper)
• 1 packet of breath mints

How very nice(?) of whoever was in charge of setting up, I think. Once I saw these ingredients I realized that there was some sort of expectation that I cook myself a meal. So, off to CVS I went to purchase salt, juice, pharmaceuticals, and snacks. I also realized that with me heading off to Haiti at the end of the week, there was no need to waste $$ buying real food now....

So, upon my return on Friday night 03/20, I learned the location of the nearest grocery store -- Trader Joe's. I cannot understand why I should be excited about this overly priced, strangely labeled, supposedly "organic" food. In my trips to Latin America, the farmers I had met all believed it was funny that Americans are so keen on the organic label. But they love the fact that they can charge more for it. Should I go buy a pair of Birkenstocks now or later?

I ended up purchasing ground beef, garlic, corn flakes, milk, a couple of bananas, and some other random food. When I got back, I stared at the ingredients and noticed that I didn't purchase any onions, spices, cooking oil -- damn it! This was only a problem because besides not knowing how to cook, I also don't like microwaveable foods. I should damn all of those good cooks in my past... but I'm too grateful for the many good meals they made for me. Mmmm, home cooked meals. That evening, I decided to just eat cereal. This was getting far too completed.

I made another attempt at purchasing the necessary goods at CVS the next day. Instead of getting everything I needed, they just ripped me off by not applying their discounts. And, damn it, I still forgot the cooking oil.

Today, 15 days after arriving to DC, I finally had enough ingredients to think about making some spaghetti with meat sauce. I put all of the stuff that I had purchased over the last few days and stared at it. I waited for some dark memory, deep in the recesses of my brain to get recalled, so I could figure out how to make this meal happen. Mind you, this whole problem only started because of the damn Whole Foods bag -- I would never have embarked on trying to make my own food again, had I not wanted to waste what they had already purchased. Do you understand now why I put the question mark after the word nice earlier?

I turn on the stove and start boiling water for the spaghetti. Something in my brain triggers that there should be a little salt thrown in that boiling water. So, in goes a dash of Morton's salt. "Hmm, what now," I think. I turn to the cloves of garlic, wash off the new chopping block, and begin to cut the garlic into little pieces. "Going to a restaurant for Italian would have been much more convenient," I think to myself. I add the garlic, onion powder and salt sparingly to the ground beef and mix all of the stuff together. I'm completely paranoid about giving myself some sort of food poisoning, so after I use each utensil, I throw it into the dishwasher. This meal might not be 5 star, but I'll be damned if I give myself salmonella or e coli or some other disease I can't spell.

I turn the saucepan onto high heat. From all of my experiences burning beautiful pottery on stoves of the past, I recall that high heat should only be used for boiling water, so I turn the heat down a bit. I cook the ground beef. I sniff it. I push at it. I check, check again, re-check and continue checking that the meat is cooking thoroughly and that I won't be left with any pink in the middle. It's starting to smell the way I think it should smell, but a little too faint. So, I add the same bits of seasoning in equal proportion again. It started to smell better. Meanwhile, because suddenly I think my name has magically changed to Chef Boyardee, I decide to also boil the pasta at the same time. Watch out now, Alayne is multi-tasking in the kitchen! I drained the ground beef from some of the grease that had cooked off and dumped in some of the spaghetti sauce that had been left. Tomato and basil. Blah, sounds horribly boring!

While I was cooking, I realized that I had no place to store all of this stuff, as the wise corporate housing folks didn't seem to leave any Tupperware for me. And in those many trips to the stores, it hadn't occurred to me to purchase some. Oh well, I thought to myself. I'll just store all of the meat sauce in the glass bakeware that has a lid. That should be good, right?

The meal turned out OK. Not any worse than what you would have to eat at a hotel meal. I wouldn't have been one to have purchased whole grain pasta, but it worked. The spaghetti sauce lacked some of the chunks of tomatoes that I would have liked, but I guess I should have purchased some during one of the store runs. Oh, and despite all of those store runs, I still don't have any pepper! I also have a bunch of dirty dishes that need to be washed. And leftovers for another day. I put the dishes away and wonder, why o why, should I ever do this to myself again!

P.S. The subject line comes from the fact that back home, I generally alert anyone in the house that I am entering the kitchen to make food. I have been known to fall asleep with eggs boiling on the stove. And if you've ever been curious what happens to an egg, after all of the water has boiled away.... the answer is... as the pot turns black, the egg shell will take on a brown to black hue, once it reaches a critical heat, it will explode like the sound of gunfire. And it will be a large enough explosion that the yolks of the egg will hit the ceiling. Since I've done this on numerous occasions, you can be certain that this is repeatable experiment, without you having to try this at home yourself!