Fat-free, self-contained Fried Eggs-in-the-Shell.

I’ve been making this simple recipe for years with occasional unintentional variations, but the results are always the same. Please feel free to try this one for yourself.

• 1 nice Calphalon saucepan
• 6 cups cold water
• 6 jumbo eggs
• My Cousin Vinny on DVD
• 1 leather sofa

Carefully place your six eggs into the saucepan, add water, and place on the stove on medium heat. Make a vague mental note to check the eggs in about 30 minutes, then lie down on the sofa and accidentally fall asleep watching My Cousin Vinny for an hour and a half until you practically melt your 10-pound hard-anodized Calphalon pot. You won’t ever need a timer for any of this because the smell of sizzling eggshells will eventually wake you up ... guaranteed. Then just plunge the eggs into cold running water for 10 minutes and refrigerate. Once these little orbs of white lava cool off you can use them like normal hard-boiled eggs.

I’m going to use some of mine to make a bowl of salmon salad this afternoon. (Salmon salad is a lot like tuna salad except I don’t have any tuna.) It’s very good on crackers or a bagel. Thank you for reading this.