How do you like your eggs?

Please don't tell me that you're watching your weight and/or cholesterol and can't eat eggs. Eggs are one of nature's miracle foods. Granted they started out to be some creature, but if caught early in the process, they don't form into real beings and are just good food.

My father raised chickens in my backyard when I was a kid in Texas, and one of my jobs was to collect the eggs, still warm, from under the nesting chickens. I don't think any one of those chickens missed the egg. They really do have tiny brains: just look at their heads in relation to their bodies. Hens, like milk cows, are programmed to make their product -- eggs and milk -- and apparently don't think much about it. The cow being milked likely gives no thought to the calf who might be drinking that milk. It's just what a cow does. Same thing for a chicken.

(This doesn't mean that a cow or hen doesn't care about her offspring; it just means that her milk or egg production goes on anyway, and if she has no calf or chick to take advantage, why not us?)

So if you can accept the idea of eggs as given to us -- more or less freely -- by the hens of the world, I ask again: How do you like your eggs?

I like mine over easy, cooked on one side and then either tossed over for just a few seconds or, better yet, covered and allowed to cook on the top side for no more than a minute or so.

I like to cook eggs in butter as I think it adds flavor. Maybe brown some garlic and onion in the butter before you put the eggs in. Toss some chopped chives over the top as you put the lid on. Grated cheese can also be added then.

Eggs, like beans, are one of the staples of life in lots of cultures. Because we have chickens to lay eggs all over the world, the egg is a staple everywhere. Just like beans. If you only ate eggs and beans -- with some local spices thrown in -- you would be fine. You would live long. And not be too taste-deprived.

In the South, they fry eggs and serve them with grits. In the Southwest, they smother them in spicy salsa. One recent trend is to serve very expensive stuff with a soft-boiled egg on top that you pierce with your fork and send the hot yolk streaming down over your entree. It calls for an absolutely perfectly soft-boiled egg, which is no easy feat. I say bravo!

Lots of people like their eggs scrambled, which is the way you find them on buffets. But eggs scrambled on a big scale don't usually work. To properly scramble an egg, you need to melt a little butter in the pan, then add the eggs and swirl them around, with whatever spices you want, but only let them cook until they're not liquid, then take them out and put them on a plate, as they'll keep cooking for a little while longer and end up perfect. Serve with a side of buttered toast and some good jam made by monks.

Boiled eggs are interesting. They have almost no taste, but added to chicken they make chicken salad (with some mayo, etc.); added to tuna they make tuna salad. Added to any kind of green salad, chopped up, they add texture. But they can be eaten alone, too: just sprinkle a little salt and pepper on each bite, and you have a hiking/picnic protein boost. I like to keep half a dozen boiled eggs in the fridge for whatever might come up. You can also "devil" them, which involves mixing the yokes with mustard and/or mayo and your favorite spices and serving them "on the half-shell" like oysters. Maybe sprinkle a little red pepper or paprika on top, depending on your audience.

There are omeletes, too, meaning semi-scrambled eggs folded over various ingredients, from onion to peppers to mushrooms to diced ham to anything you can think of -- shrimp? --and often topped with cheese (that should be melted). Some omelettes are real works of culinary art, but you won't find them at your next Holiday Inn, where the omelettes are filling and tasty but not inspiring. Use your imagination.

I think eggs can be as simple or sophisticated as you have time for or can afford. They are a wondrous food -- if you can get past the idea that they're un-formed chicks (the yolk) -- that lends a worthwhile dimension to our human palette. Face it. We humans like eggs. Like we like beef, we meat-eaters. And pork and chicken and fish, etc. It's just kind of who we are.

Let me mention two other ways that eggs are sometimes cooked: soft-boiled and poached. Both methods produce an egg that is softer. To poach an egg, you need to more or less steam it. Break it into some kind of container made for the purpose, above the boiling water, and put a lid on. After a certain amount of time -- you would have to consult a cooking book for details -- take the lid off and you have a perfectly formed egg that is pure white on the outside and pure soft yellow in the center. This is the basis of a famous dish you probably know, when combined with an English muffin and good ham and hollandaise sauce.

To soft-boil an egg, you just don't boil it as long. If you usually bring your eggs to a boil for three minutes, try cutting it to two. Take an egg out and check it. You want the white to be more or less cooked and firm but the yolk to be runny. That's a soft-boiled egg. Great over a piece of buttered toast. A little crisp bacon on the side doesn't hurt.

Breakfast is sort of the great democratic meal. At least in America. No one can fix one much better than the traditional one, which almost always features eggs. Eggs are the great equalizer. Figure out how to make eggs that your family and guests like, and you'll always be a hero, at least in the morning.

I admire vegetarians for their beliefs -- it really is kind of barbaric to kill animals just to eat -- as I admire the more extreme vegans who won't eat anything that comes from an animal. But I'm afraid I'm not quite there. I might be able to forego meat -- sometimes, maybe -- but I don't think I can give up cheese and sour cream and half-and-half for my coffee.

And eggs? Forget about it!