Of Eggs and Arts

My parents are and always have been creatures of habit. My mom’s family moved around constantly when she was young (they were assassins or carnies or something) and when she married my dad, his work took them all over the place, so I think it’s kind of a calming exercise for them.

When I was young, we had one guaranteed meal out each week: Sunday lunch. There were long stretches when we’d always go to Around the Corner in downtown Edmond. Or the long-since-closed Hack’s Cafeteria (nee Wyatt’s Cafeteria) where I was an early adherent of fried fish.

I’m not sure when it was that we transitioned to Jimmy’s Egg, but that was when my love affair with omelets began. And, don’t ask me why, but we all got the special one day—bacon, avocado, and cream cheese—and it was so good that we all began ordering it every week, like some weird egg-based cult.

Ingredients for the Omelette de Pineapple: (clockwise from top left) crushed pineapple, bacon, butter, eggs, and cream cheese.

Eggs are incredible and edible, if I’ve understood the advertising correctly, and so when I first learned of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s annual Omelette Party, I was smitten. Chefs from across the metro, cooking omelets and other ova-inspired dishes (also there was something about art?) sounded like exactly my kind of party.

If you’d like to know what isn’t my kind of party, it’s every other kind of party. Please do not invite me to parties. It benefits no one.

But the OKCMOA Omelette Party benefits the museum, which is a place I love, and did I mention eggs? So that’s a party I’ll gladly attend. Just my luck that a pandemic came along and screwed it all up.

Art never sleeps and neither do chickens (factchecker Ben Luschen’s note: chickens do sleep), so this year the museum is taking their annual event virtual. There’s still art to be raffled and funds to be raised for OKCMOA, but the omelets will have to be made by you.

Much as I love omelets, can I be honest? I’ve never successfully made one. Flat scrambled eggs, yes. A real, functional omelet, no. But OKCMOA’s Director of Marketing & Communications Becky Weintz tracked down a simple recipe from a past event and sent it over, so I gave it a shot.

Omelette de Pineapple

Yields: 1 big omelet

Ingredients

2 tbsp clarified butter
3 eggs, well beaten
4 tbsp canned crushed pineapple, drained
4 strips cooked bacon, crumbled
3 tbsp cream cheese, cubed

Directions

1. Heat omelet pan until hot and add butter.
2. When butter sizzles, add eggs and shake pan rapidly in a circular motion.
3. When the omelet is set, but slightly soft in the center, add pineapple, bacon, and cream cheese. Invert pan and fold onto serving plate.

Pineapple? In an omelet? I thought it sounded weird, but then I thought about how it’s basically my favorite omelet with pineapple instead of avocado. And pineapple isn’t the overpowering flavor you might think, especially up against a lot of richness.

The ingredients were a snap, so the execution was my real hurdle. But those instructions really work! Why haven’t I been shaking my pans before? With so much clarified butter, the egg never had a chance to stick to the pan and shaking it just made extra sure that when it was time to plate, I wouldn’t be leaving egg in the pan.

The Omelette de Pineapple comes together.

I spread the pineapple in a strip along the center of the egg disc and distributed the cream cheese and bacon similarly, hoping the heat from the pan would help the cheese turn a little less solid. After sliding it onto the pan, I was even able to fold it into a semi-omelet-looking shape.

The taste...was wonderful. Pineapple has some nice acidity, similar in that way to avocado’s green flavor, and it helps cut through the richness of the butter and bacon and cream cheese. Without pineapple, it would be too heavy.

And the amount was just right. You get some of the fruity sweetness, but it’s never the focal point of the dish. It contrasts well with the bacon, especially, keeping the salty, smoky flavors from overpowering everything else. Season it with salt and pepper to your tastes and maybe add a dash of hot sauce to liven things up. But now, when I’m logging on to look at the OKCMOA’s Omelette Party art collection (available through March 20), I won’t be crying over a lack of eggs.

The final product! A very tasty Omelette de Pineapple.

Learn more about this year’s event at okcmoa.com.

Written By

Greg Elwell

Greg Elwell served as research editor and web editor of Oklahoma Today from 2018-2023. He also has worked for newspapers, medical research organizations, and government institutions.