During the week of October 10th, it was extremely difficult to avoid the hype surrounding the release of Britney Spears' new music video for the debut single of her sixth studio album, "Circus." Entitled "Womanizer", the single set a record 5 days after the music video's release, jumping from 96 to number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. According to wikipedia.net, the single also garnered first-week download sales of 286 000.

Now what does the music video for a pop star's comeback single have to do with food? If you watch it, one of Britney's character's alter egos serves her love interest a square egg, presumably for breakfast.

Womanizer

First Alter Ego

One Square Egg!

That girl must be talented to produce a square egg...Hey! Wait a minute! I've seen something like that before...I remember coming across a webpage years ago with something similar. Go google!

The webpage featured a gadget that produces square-shaped hard boiled eggs. It links to a flickr photoset showing someone, trying to make square eggs using the featured doohickey..

Egg Cuber from Makezine.com

Step 1 - unpack the cuber

Step 2 - read the instructions

Step 3 - unsuccessfully cube eggs

Step 4 - show off the only one that sorta worked
Source: Original Vendor c/o shinyshiny.com

Reading the comments with the flickr images, I found the following more extreme egg shaping device. Apparently, "shapely" eggs are popular in bento boxes in Japan.

Egg Star-er

Step 1 - Find a volunteer...

Step 2 - Stick it in the mold

Step 3 - Seal and chill it good

Step 4 - Unmold and tell children it came from a special chicken
Source: cookingcute.com
According to the cookingcute.com website, the secret to successfully molding eggs involves 1) using large or extra-large eggs and 2) putting the eggs into the mold when they are still hot (i.e. when the proteins haven't yet set).

BTW, a star egg mold is the tip of the iceberg...

Here's a Hello Kitty mold

And, here's a tube of hard boiled eggs...
Hmm...I guess that makes 5 degrees of egg shapeliness. Thanks Britney!

Last January, I spent approximately a week in downtown Toronto, enjoying many of the culinary attractions that Yonge Street had to offer. Actually, I was sent to Toronto to attend a course on the financial software SAP, called SAPTEC. After doing my nightly review of the day's material, I spent the evenings wandering around. During one of my many outings, I stopped by the storefront of "Kitchen Stuff Plus" at the intersection of Yonge & Eglinton. While I favour restaurant supply houses to purchase my kitchen gear, specialty kitchen ware stores catch my attention as well. This is especially true for well stocked stores with lots of variety, such as the Kitchen Stuff Plus on Yonge Street.

According to the Kitchen Stuff Plus website, there are 9 outlets inside of the greater Toronto area (GTA). There is even a Clarance Outlet in Orfus Road, but there are no outlets in Ottawa. This became apparent Friday afternoon, when I came across Kitchen Stuff Plus' "Easter sale" on items from its "EggHead" collection.

EggHead products are adorable egg-inspired kitchen gadgets that include everything from timers, single egg fry pans, egg slicers, pancake flippers, toast tongs, whisks, and measuring spoons. There is even an EggHead potato masher.


Piercy the Egg Piercer

Egg Slicer

Egg Masher

Egg Timer

My favourite is the potato masher. I think I'll pester the owner of my favourite restaurant supply house to think about carrying the line. Alternatively, I'll have to make a trip up to Toronto this Easter.

Click here to see the promotion's online advertisement from Kitchen Supply Plus.

More after the jump...

The egg was once considered nature's perfect food. Not only can it be cooked in a myriad ways (fried, scrambled, boiled, poached), but its components are key to other dishes. Egg yolks provide the emulsifiers for sauces like mayonnaise and hollandaise. Egg whites, or albumen, can be whipped into a semi-stable foam that can be used to leaven cakes such as angel food cake and sponge cake. If egg whites are beaten further, so that they form stiff peaks, you get meringue, which can be dried or used to top pies. Together egg yolks and egg whites form the binary components to make soufflés.

To pay homage to the culinary potential of the egg, I went looking for egg-related "media" on the web. Here is what I found:

Eggs according to Dictionary.com:

The oval, thin-shelled reproductive body of a bird, especially that of a hen, used as food.

A Korean toy maker made egg action figures. Here is the now "infamous" advertisement.


The song is rather addictive. Here are the Lyrics:

Eggs, get your eggs here! Fresh and white eggs are here!!! Wiggle jiggle, yellow middle, thats the best of what you are. White and tender, surround the center, cozy sitting in a crackling shell. Vitamins and minerals in you. Oodles of the proteins, too! Oodle doodle! Popular and perfect and so complete in every way! I love you eggs eggs! Come into my tummy, oh so very yummy. Crack, crack, crack! Chipa chipa away your shell and come to me! Get your eggs! I love you! Fresh Eggs! I love you! White eggs! Really really love you so! Eggs fresh white eggs. Eggs I really love you like the sky~ above! Eggs are the best! I love you! Fresh eggs! I love you! White eggs! Really really love you so! Eggs fresh white eggs! 365 days I really love you so! I really love you so! mmm! Yummy!

Here is a link to the original flash video.

Here is an award-winning animated short, called "screaming eggs" on YouTube:


And now we're full circle. Eggs -> food -> toy -> food :)

This just in:
Here's another picture of the "plight" of eggs that's making its way around the blogosphere. It comes from a Ariel Bariel Long's flickr album and is entitled "Eggs in Peril." I picked it up from digg.com. There, the tag line is "A Breakfast Tragedy." Kudos to Ariel Bariel Long for her creativity!

And:
Not sure the source, as I got it by e-mail...

I don't want to sound sexist, but I'm sure my male readers will understand me. You know you've found a "keeper" when you wake up one Saturday morning and you're served the following for brunch: lightly salted pan fried potatoes, thinly sliced grilled sirloin steak, and an over-easy egg. Though far from balanced or healthy, this breakfast represents the ultimate in meat and potato fare. The steak was medium rare. The egg was just runny. The potatoes were crusted on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

Thanks sweetie :)

Before anyone asks, I skipped lunch and had a lot of salad for dinner.

University students are renowned for being frugal. Due to various factors, including the cost of living, tuition, student fees, and book prices, this is more necessity than lifestyle choice. As such, the eateries around a university's campus need meet certain requirements. This is because cash-strapped students hit them between classes for a quick bite or to fuel up after classes before heading back to the dorms, labs, or libraries. These eateries need to be reasonable price-wise and have fast service. To meet these needs, they tend to serve diner-like or pub-like fare. It's fast to prepare. It requires simple ingredients and it produces large portions at low cost. In the morning, a lot of these eateries will offer a cheap breakfast. We're talking the one or two egg combos for a couple bucks.

I ate a lot of these combos when I was a student. At the local campus joint, my "regular" consisted of two over easy eggs, two rashers of bacon, two breakfast sausages, home fries, four triangles of lightly buttered toast, and a coffee. As frosh (freshman if you're American), the combo cost $3. When I graduated, it cost $5.

It's been a couple years. The grease doesn't get along with me as well as it used to, but I still treat myself to a cheap breakfast combo every once in a while. The one at Le Deli in the food court at Place Du Centre demonstrates that breakfast combos can have regional variations, but are based on the same premise: fast to prepare, simple ingredients, large portions, and low cost. In this case, the regional variation is based on French Canadian culture.

At Le Deli the breakfast combo consists of two eggs, two breakfast sausages, potatoes, four triangles of buttered toast, baked beans (fève au lard) and coffee, all for $5.25. The eggs are made to order and in any style. Mine usually end up over easy. Here's a tip: How well the person at the grill makes over easy eggs is an indication of his/her skills and experience. Le Deli's grill man has mad skills. My yolks always end up runny, but they aren't broken when they get to my plate. They are not greasy either. The breakfast sausages are fresh, thin skinned, and juicy. They are a far cry from the dry breakfast sausages from other breakfast joints that taste of nothing but filler and whose skins are 3 mm thick from sitting too long under the heat lamps.

What is distinctive about the combo at Le Deli are the baked beans and the potatoes. While you can order traditional home fries, I strongly recommend you try the vegetable potatoes. They look almost scalloped. They are cooked with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers and seasoned with what looks like dried parsley and paprika. Its spiciness is brightened by the vegetables. It work beautifully with the starchiness of the potatoes. The baked beans have a sweetness that reminds me of molasses. You will be hard pressed to find baked beans on the Ottawa side with a typical breakfast combo.

Every so often, you crave a cheap breakfast combo. For me, I usually satiate my cravings on Friday mornings and end up in line with a tray at Le Deli. BTW, the line up at Le Deli gets long. Go early.