You GUYZ!!! I was rooting through some papers and files in my hoarder house home office (we’re setting up a family trust; I’ll spare you the gory details) and I came across a diary I kept when I first moved into Manhattan. I only kept it up for about three months, sadly, but there I am, couch-surfing at a bestie’s on the Upper West Side. Lo, a friend of a friend is also couch-surfing on Staten Island (shudder.) I invite him over to where I’m staying and over a drink or three we bitch about how expensive studios are and how high the brokers’ fees are. One of the roommates where I’m staying suggests that we join forces and get a 2-bed. That we did! Manhattan apartment hunting horror stories galore, but finally we landed an impeccably maintained (small-ish) 2-bedroom rent-stabilized apartment in Chelsea for $1,000 a month.

Musical interlude:

Where was I? Oh yes. It was a great arrangement. He was one of the funniest guys I’ve ever known and together we got into all kinds of mischief, as only two 20-something platonic gay men can (my Better Half was still up in Boston.) I had my prestigious but laughably low-paying 9–5 job and he worked at one of the city’s most prestigious restaurants at night but he wasn’t a waiter so he didn’t make much money either. He did scoop up bunches of flowers at the end of his shift because they would be thrown out otherwise, to be replaced daily, so our apartment always reeked of orchids.

Anyway, when the two of us were at home for dinner together, which was rare, because of our work schedules and the hyper-connected two college women who lived next door who got us in everywhere, but sometimes we did, and I would make this:

Ingredients:

1 can corned beef hash (approx. 15 oz.)

A little water (optional)

4 eggs, medium to large

What to Do:

Put a skillet on a stove burner on high. (That apartment had a sad little kitchen row alongside one wall of the common area, and we only had a 2-burner stove.) Open the can of corned beef hash (I used to buy Hormel) and with a spatula dump the hash into the skillet and flatten it out so you make like a pancake.

Let that go for about 8 to 10 minutes. Do not touch it. Don’t flip or mix. If you think the bottom is starting to burn gently lift a corner of your hash pancake and introduce a little water but not too much, maybe a tablespoon at a time, because no one enjoys soggy corned beef hash. Well, my Faithful Hound would have, RIP.

Now, get a large spoon and make four indents in your hash pancake. Crack an egg and pour it in each one. Reduce the heat and let that go for 3 or 4 minutes. You’re poaching the egg, not hard-boiling it, and the hash is doing your work for you. BTW, speaking of poaching eggs, I wasn’t very good at it until I saw this at a Williams Sonoma:

https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/williams-sonoma-breakfast-egg-molds-set-of-2

Genius. I didn’t pay nearly this much because I was at a WS outlet in California…

Anyway, you can jazz up your corned beef hash by slicing up a red potato or two and a yellow onion or two and half-frying them, and then dumping the corned beef hash with it into a bowl, mix it around, and layer the skillet.

I have an editorial note. My roommate and I moved into that apartment during a horrific heatwave and we didn’t have any a/c or even fans. So, according to my notes, what to serve with the hash and eggs?

1. Find the largest pitcher/container.
2. Fill 2/3 way with really cheap red/white wine/Riunite?
3. Add a splash of orange juice or leftover champagne from the roommate’s end-of-shift haul.
4. Chop up whatever fruit was on sale (apples/pears/cherries/grapes)
5. Dump that into the pitcher.
6. Take out all the ice from the kitchen’s dorm fridge and add to pitcher.
7. Stir, and remove to closet to keep out of sunlight.
8. Start Hash and Eggs dinner.

Coming up next (maybe): Are/were Cuban-Chinese restaurants an exclusively a NYC thing and what did they serve? Cousin Mattie’s diary reveals all.