Pilate Dead is one of my all-time favorite characters in literature. In Song of Solomon, she gives Milkman and Guitar the important life lesson of how to make the perfect soft-boiled egg. So I thought I'd try it out ...
Here's my room-temperature egg.
Is this a yolk like velvet? In any case, it's pretty tastey!
"You all want a soft-boiled egg," [Pilate] asked?
The boys looked at each other. She'd changed rhythm on them. They didn't want an egg, but they did want to be with her, to go inside the wine house of this lady who had one earing, no navel, and looked like a tall black tree.
"No thanks, but we'd like a drink of water." Guitar smiled back at her.
"Well. Step right in." She opened the door and they followed her into a large sunny room ... "You ought to try one. I know how to do them just right. I don't like my whites to move, you know. The yolk I want soft, but not runny. Want it like wet velvet. How come you don't just try one?"
... Now she stood before the dry sink, pumping water into a blue and white wash basin which she used for a saucepan.
"Now, the water and the egg have to meet each other on a kind of equal standing. One can't get the upper hand over the other. So the temperature has to be the same for both. I knock the chill off the water first. Just the chill. I don't let it get warm because the egg is room temperature, you see. Now then, the real secret is right here in the boiling. When the tiny bubbles come to the surface, when they as big as peas and just before they get big as marbles. Well, right then you take the pot off the fire. You don't just put the fire out; you take the pot off. Then you put a folded newspaper over the pot and do one small obligation. Like answering the door or emptying the bucket and bringing it in off the front porch. I generally go to the toilet. Not for a long stay, mind you. Just a short one. If you do all that, you got yourself a perfect soft-boiled egg." (p. 38-39, Song of Solomon)
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