Omelet

There are a lot of omelet styles. Some are good. I like a thin omelet surrounding a good filling. Some people prefer the thick egg patties folded over and a separately cooked filling.

There is also "the" way to cook an omelet. Julia Child describes it (and the recommended equipment for it) in an excerpt from Mastering the Art of French Cooking here: http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/child/recipe.html. There's also a great, albeit passing, omelet scene in Tampopo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampopo), a great Ramen Western movie that anyone interested in food would likely enjoy. It's not Ratatouille, so you may want to think before choosing this for family movie night. All I'll contribute to the omelet discussion is that I use a 8" nonstick pan, and this is the only time I'm pretty fearless about preheating it on high heat (because of the whole fumes thing). Also, I add the salt and pepper while the eggs are cooking, not before adding them to the pan. I've done it both ways, and prefer the former.

Omelet:
Ingredients:
- Eggs (2 per omelet)
- Cream (just a bit if it's laying around)
- Smoked trout, flaked
- Bacon, cooked and broken into pieces
- Butter
- Salt and pepper
Method:
- Preheat nonstick pan
- Beat eggs in a bowl and add maybe a tablespoon of cream
- Have everything ready to go
- Add butter to a hot pan
- When butter stops foaming add eggs
- Add some salt and pepper
- Add trout and bacon
- Roll according to Julia's instruction (or as close as you can get)
- If things don't look too good, you can shape the omelet using a paper towel for grip

Toast:
- You're on your own

That's it. No cheese, but that's just because I didn't have any I wanted to use on hand. It wasn't missed, but a small bit of Gruyere could have been nice. Filling additions, omissions, and swapping options are endless.

My favorite place for an omelet in the Cleveland area--Irv's Sandwich Shop at 2164 South Taylor Rd. in Cleveland Heights. There's nothing fancy about the place, so be ready for that if you go. They make the omelets on a griddle, spreading the egg mixture out super thin before adding the toppings and folding the whole thing into a nice package. For most other places in the area I stick to eggs over easy or pancakes.