The Omelette Sutra

I find Elizabeth David's classic book, 'French Provincial Cooking', to be replete with advice for the Pureland Sangha.

"As everybody knows, there is only one infallible recipe for the perfect omelette: your own. Reasonably enough; a successful dish is often achieved by quite different methods from those advised in cookery books or by the professional chefs, but over this question of omelette making professional and amateur cooks alike are particularly unyielding. Argument has never been known to convert anybody to a different method, so if you have your own, stick to it and let others go their cranky ways, mistaken, stubborn and ignorant to the end." 

After sharing her own detailed instructions for the perfect omelette, she concludes:

"An omelette is nothing to make a fuss about. The chief mistakes are putting in too much of the filling and making this too elaborate. Such rich things as foie gras or lobster in cream sauce are inappropriate. In fact, moderation in every aspect is the best advice where omelettes are concerned. Sauces and other trimmings are superfluous, a little extra butter melted in the warm omelette dish or placed on top of the omelette as you serve it being the only addition which is not out of place."

How blessed we are to have such an abundance of great teachers!

May the Sangha's omelette-making prosper.

Namo Amida Bu

P.S. Her reputation in the world of cooks needs no further comment here; but I was surprised and delighted to learn that she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982.

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