Eggies

Jules and I laugh each time we see the actors laboriously peel the shell from hard boiled eggs in the Eggies commercials. Despite the shallow acting, we'd say "why didn't we think of that?" A week ago Jules bought a box of those labor saving devices.

Despite our near three decades of marriage, it still does not occur to me that one should wash cookware just purchased from the store. "It looked clean to me" is probably a man's mantra. Fortunately Jules does make sure cookware of unknown origins always gets washed. So the Eggies were washed and set to dry on our counter. When it came time to put them away I decided I would just put them in service.

Earlier Wookie let me know she wanted to crack eggs and empty them into the Eggies, so I called her into the kitchen and set water boiling in a pan. I had Wookie crack the eggs into a measuring cup and explained "in case you get shells mixed in." She cracked an egg - no shells. So far so good.

Each Eggie consists of four parts. I fit the bottom three parts together leaving the cap off.

"Your not doing it right" said Wookie

"I am" I countered.

We both looked at the box. "O.K" she said.

She poured the egg white and yolk into the Eggie. The hole is not wide enough to prevent some of the egg white from running down the side.

Wookie tried another one but this time she wanted to separate the yolk from the egg. She was doing a good job pouring the egg white out of the cup into the Eggie while carefully retaining the yolk in the measuring cup.

"Wait" I said, " Use the yolk separating tool that came with the Eggie." It was listed as a "bonus" item on the box.  Wookie poured the yolk onto the separating tool. By this time, only about a half teaspoon of egg white was left to separate.

Wookie let me finish the rest of the eggs. On my first try I managed to get two egg shells into the measuring cup with the egg. Using a neat trick I learned long ago, I used part of the shell to fish out the broken eggshells. Unfortunately my "fishing" scoop eggshell also broke so I now had three eggshells floating in the cup. I decided I would use the yolk separater to capture the eggshells. I managed to get two of them as I poured the egg over the separater and along the side of the Eggie. I had egg all over the counter. By the time I cleaned up the mess, I figured I could have peeled the shells from three regular hard boiled eggs.

I finally had all six containers filled, each with egg on the sides since the yolk would momentarily plug the hole before falling in, which let egg white run over the side. In two cases the yolk broke before pouring into the hole. Some of the Eggies leaked around the middle because the retaining collar was not screwed on tight enough. I tightened them and then set each Eggie into the pot of boiling water. Soon it was apparent that I didn't tighten one Eggie enough as I saw Eggie components floating in the pot with the egg scum on top of the water.

As I watched the eggs boil, it occurred to me that I just put enclosed capsules of egg and air in boiling water. That didn't seem right from a physics perspective. I looked at the box - the third step shows a complete container ready for boiling. I probably shouldn't completely trust pictures drawn in countries that have potential for being enemies of the U.S. In this case nothing happened - when I later retrieved the Eggies, everyone of them were full of water. Not exactly air tight. So before putting them in the fridge, I had to unscrew the cap and pour out the water.

For breakfast this morning, Wookie went for an Eggie. She twisted the Eggie ("As seen on TV"). Nothing happened. I had to scoop it out with a spoon.  Later Jules told us we didn't follow the directions - turns out there was a folded paper in the box with seven steps, four more than the three shown on the outside of the box. Sure enough, step 2 states "You MUST coat the inside of the Eggies with either non-stick cooking spray or oil. DO NOT spray directly into the Eggies. Spray onto paper towel and evenly coat the inside of the top and bottom pieces." I didn't remember seeing this in the commercial.

Interestingly enough, step one is "Wash Eggies before use." Jules said this type of product isn't good for a nation where only one third of the population reads directions. I said "That high?" She said she was extrapolating her estimate from the population sample in our household. She always was a curve buster.

So in the end I can report it takes seven eggs to produce five eggs from Eggies. I'm not sure you'll save much peeling time once you've accounted for cleaning counters, washing Eggies, and washing egg scum off your pots.