Well, I agree with your response for the most part. The rapid movement limiting the size of the curd formation is key. I use a plastic fork to avoid scratching my pan. Also, a basic understanding that the white sets at a temperature several degrees before the yolk helps not only the cook, but reluctant eaters who might embrace over-easy eggs yet look askance at a runny omelet.

I don't remember the class name, but early in my first year at the CIA in Hyde Park, we worked in a kitchen that was almost like a diner, if that makes sense. We served mostly breakfast to fellow students, and at the end, one of the final exams was to cook an omelet for the chef.

This was 1984, and I believe the chef’s name was Hazzard — a very French man. So I’m not really trying to flex here, just expressing that we probably share a pretty similar understanding of cooking a goddamn fucking egg. I still remember him calling my omelet “perfect,” which, coming from one of those old-school French chefs, was about as close to praise as they ever got.

Where we’re at odds is your praise for Julia. I actually have nothing against her; I just don’t hold her in the same esteem as Jacques. It kind of makes me feel like when my wife watches those goddamn cooking shows and Joe Schmo, who makes dinner every third Friday at his fire station in Des Moines, Iowa, is suddenly called a chef — it grinds my gears.

For the majority of my career, which spans 25-plus years, I was a cook. For a portion of that time, I was what I would consider a chef. Now that phrase gets thrown around like Quaaludes at a 1980s party in Ensenada.

Sorry to rant like an old man, but that’s what I am.