Eggs and Lox and Daddy

There are a lot of posts up all over the Internet today about dads, but I’m going to add my own two cents all the same. After all, there’s no cap to how much love there can be in the world, and definitely no limit to how much a girl can love her dad.

Today is a day about fathers, which is strange, considering that it’s been exactly a year since I last saw mine.

My dad is a lot of things; I take after him in many ways, some good, some bad. We both have the same explosive temper, and I definitely get my inability to deal with stupid people from him. I can’t fault him for it, though; he’s probably the smartest person I know.

But it’s not his intelligence I want to write about today, or his off-beat sense of humor. I think that if I could pick only one quality of my dad’s that was the undercurrent to my childhood, it would be his ability to look.

People see things all the time; we use our eyes to find landmarks, to recognize people, to appreciate the beauty in the world around us, even, but for my dad, looking was always so much more than that. One of the first recurrent memories I have, an old normal that’s disappeared now, was the game my dad used to play with me when we were in public places — restaurants, parks, museums. I would get a minute to look at everything — really look — and then I would have to close my eyes, and he would ask me: what color is the hair of the kid at the table next to us? How many people are sitting on the park bench? Does the waiter wear glasses? I got better in time; I wanted to memorize the room perfectly, to run it off for him as though I could still see it, but every time, I would miss some small detail and open my eyes… they immediately darted over to discover the pattern of the drapes I couldn’t recall, the color of the carpet, the number of trees lining the path.

My brother was recently back in Paris before heading back to New York, and we spent an afternoon sitting in a park, talking about the ways that our childhood have influenced how we wanted to raise our own children, someday. We were in agreement on certain details and less so on others, but one of the many things we both remembered were the museum trips my father would take us on when we were small. In retrospect, we probably spent no more than an hour wandering the rooms of the Met, just enough time before we got restless, though I don’t remember any of those trips being unpleasant or boring, as one might assume from the screaming children I encounter all-too-frequently at the Louvre. I have to think it’s because of how my father showed us to look.

He would point out details in Impressionnist paintings, which were his favorites: the curve of a hand, the stroke of a paintbrush that mimicked the way that hair lay on a shoulder. He told us to stand up close to Monet paintings and back up slowly so that the picture came into focus; my father and I were both horrifically nearsighted at the time, and seeing the image appear reminded me of pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose in the morning and seeing the familiarity of my bedroom slide into place.

My father pointed out everything. He would look at an old New York building, an advertisement long outdated painted on its side, and ask me how I thought it had gotten there. He would point out the differences in the shapes of leaves from different trees in Central Park. He compared people to their dogs, accents to the noise of the Subway or the sound of a farm animal. He taught me to see the beauty in the dirty and old, the sort of beautiful disgust that doesn’t exist outside of New York. I grew to be obsessed with the city he had claimed for himself when he was young, all because of him and who he is.

I don’t live in the city anymore; the last time I was there was this time last year. My dad and I had planned to spend a day together, and when I woke, he was already dressed and waiting for me to go on our adventure. It reminded me of similar days when I was small, when he would pick a destination seemingly at random, and off we went: to the Cloisters to sketch medieval French columns, to Central Park to walk around the reservoir, to the botanical gardens to watch flowers blossom. Often, our excursions ended at one of his favorite restaurants: after the Met, we went to E.A.T. and ate baguette with raspberry jam, and on Tuesday nights, we went to Il Pomodoro and had dinner, just the two of us. Last year, we wandered downtown Manhattan, had slices at John’s on Bleecker, bought coffee at Porto Rico, browsed the Chelsea Market, wandered the grounds of Columbia.

Perhaps one of our favorite places to go together has always been Barney Greengrass, where — at least for us — there is only one option of what to order. He taught me to watch the host, who seats people without fanfare and seems to know most of New York City. He told me the difference between a Jewish deli and an Italian deli — white and red — and to look into the glass fish counter to see all of the salads and fish for sale.

He also told me to order eggs and lox, and we would speculate over what makes them so good — the years of cooking in the same skillet? The quality of the products? Some secret ingredient? He always said that it must be schmaltz; I’ve made the dish in my Paris kitchen and have concluded that this is as close as you can get, without booking an overnight ticket to NYC and hightailing it to the Upper West Side.

In just a few months, I’ll be back in the States; I hope to convey some of the things my father showed me throughout my childhood to the Country Boy. But most of all, I hope to spend at least one of those days with my dad, because those are the memories that, though they’re made over the course of just a few hours, nourish your soul for a lifetime.

Lox and Eggs

I’ve posted a version of this recipe before, which is a good fallback option if you don’t have schmaltz lying around. Use really good eggs for this.

1 Tbsp. butter
1 small onion, very thinly sliced (use your best knife)
2 tbsp. schmaltz
1/2 tsp. salt
8 eggs
6 oz. smoked salmon
a few grinds of fresh black pepper

Heat the butter over low heat and add the onion and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is lightly caramelized and soft, about 30 minutes. (This can be done ahead of time).

Add the schmaltz to the skillet and stir in to the onions. In a bowl, whisk the eggs together until they become light and foamy, about 2 minutes of fast whisking. Add the eggs to the skillet with the onions. Allow to cook without stirring for 1 minute, then, using a spatula, gently scrape the eggs from the bottom and fold to create large curds. Continue cooking like this until the eggs are slightly firm but still very wet.

Cut the salmon into small pieces and add to the skillet. Remove immediately from the heat and slowly fold the salmon into the scramble until just heated through. Serve immediately with a toasted bagel half and cream cheese.