Those words don't fill me with the same euphoric delight as when I was a kid in school. Now, I immediately translate them in my head to: Shovel Day! That's right, in the grand Ohio tradition, we got our first big snow before Thanksgiving. What a great state!

And okay, I'm exaggerating a little. It's like four inches, hardly even worth mentioning to someone in, say, Michigan or Wyoming or something. But for me, who grew up in Virginia and lived in Manhattan, snow that accumulates on the ground = BIG snow. VA just doesn't get that much, and in NYC, the snow mostly melts before it hits the pavement, because of the greenhouse effect of all those buildings. Stinger and I got out there and shoveled, like good little suburban bunnies, having learned our lesson last year. Last year we let it pile up, and then freeze over, and then pile up some more, until finally it was such a mess we actually couldn't do it. We had to call in professionals.

Such beautiful, chill, snowy weather calls for something special for breakfast. One of my favorite things to do is baked eggs (oeufs en cocotte for you francophiles out there). Baked eggs are very simple, old-fashioned enough to be unusual but not requiring anything more than I normally have on hand in my kitchen. The basic preparation is to heat a pan of water on the stovetop. Once the water is simmering, put your little buttered ramekins (they can be pyrex or ceramic) in the water with a tablespoon of cream in each. Heat up the cream, then add one egg to each ramekin, top with another tablespoon of cream, a dot of butter to keep the top from scorching, and stick the whole pan full of ramekins in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Baking them in the water bath allows for a more even distribution of heat and keep the eggs from sticking. Easy, deliciously decadent (yay, cream!), and infinitely variable. Julia Child, who introduced me to the recipe, recommends adding chopped chicken, ham, liver, crabmeat, or lobster to the eggs. You can also substitute bechamel or tomato sauce for the second tablespoon of cream. You can put in grated cheese like parmesan or swiss--really, anything you want.

I happened to have a bunch of fresh herbs languishing in my fridge, so I chopped up a mixture and added half a teaspoon to each ramekin along with the first tablespoon of cream. If you're curious, my fines herbes mixture consisted of flat leaf parsley, thyme, sage, and oregano. Delicious! Light and fresh, with good, noticable herb flavor.

Posted by Louisa Edwards at 9:25 AM