Nothing beat a fried egg sandwich

It was the first — and only — thing my father ever taught me to cook.
Dad wasn’t much in the kitchen, except to pinch my mother occasionally when she was working at the sink.
Oh, there was one summer that he tried.
Mom had the bright idea that each Saturday night a different member of the family should have responsibility for making dinner. My older brother and sister were out of the house by that time, so it was — as I recollect — just the four of us.
If it worked properly, my mother only had Saturday night dinner duties once a month.
My creations were pretty limited. (Hot dogs, anyone?)
Dad’s were even more so, with one exception. One week when it was his turn, he decided to make a dish called turkey tetrazzini. It sounded pretty fancy, but essentially it involved noodles, cheese and some leftover turkey. It’s a casserole.
But to hear my father tell it, his turkey tetrazzini was the stuff of legends. No chef on earth had ever concocted anything so complicated. No family had ever sat down to a dish so delightful. Nothing could compare to dad’s turkey tetrazzini.
That was all in fun, of course.
He knew he was a klutz in the kitchen. Every word of praise for his turkey tetrazzini — and this went on for months if not years — was in conscious self-mockery. It was all his way of teasing.
But there was one specialty he made like no one else.
Coming home late after long hours at the office or on the road or at a meeting, he’d find that the family had been fed and he needed to fend for himself.
Not a problem, he said.
Before you knew it, he had a skillet heating on the stove and butter melting in the pan. When the butter was just right and the heat in the skillet was perfect, he’d break a single egg. And as the egg started to fry, he’d break the yolk, cooking it “over hard” rather than “over easy” or sunny side up. He’d salt and pepper just the right amount, then put the finished product between two slices of bread.
Voila, a fried egg sandwich.
I never knew for sure when he’d started cooking fried egg sandwiches. Maybe it was when he was a door-to-door soap salesman during the Depression. Maybe it was when he had a job as a chauffeur for Jeanette Rankin, the famous pacifist. Maybe it was after he’d returned to Jay County and worked as a “bundle boy” at The Jay Garment Company.
But wherever he learned to cook them, fried egg sandwiches remained his favorite late-night meal all his life.
And when I was heading into my teens and sometimes had late-night cravings for a bite to eat, he’d make two so I could join him at the kitchen table or watching the news on WHIO out of Dayton.
It makes me hungry just to think back on it.