This weekend was interesting. We went on a thirty-mile bike ride.

Such a thing not only encourages but requires breakfast if you don't want to end up collapsed hyperventilating on the side of the road. I got up and looked into the cold, cold refrigerator. Er. Some eggs. Eggs are delicious, but you can't eat a stomach full of grease before such a day. You have to balance them out with something besides hashbrowns, too. Toast? No bread. No tortillas, even. It would have to be vegetables. So what could I make involving non-greasy eggs and vegetables together?

I made an egg salad.

Most people know egg salad as chopped hard-boiled eggs in a mix of mayo and mustard. I like this business just fine, especially when you add as much chopped dill as humanly possible. However, the mustard-mayo business is really heavy and greasy and you guys, mayonnaise is made of raw eggs and oil! You know that, right?

So that was not an available option. Instead, I made an egg and green bean salad based heavily on salade nicoise: a French (Nicoise!) salad generally consisting of salad greens with boiled potatoes, green beans, tuna, and hard-boiled eggs, among other things. I love salade nicoise with a blinding passion, so much as to have come up with at least two or three variations I eat on a regular basis. This was perhaps the most pared-down version so far.

Alternate egg salad

eggs
green beans
vinaigrette
salt and pepper
maybe some parsley

This is very easy. Find a small pot with a lid, add your whole eggs, and add with water to cover. Bring the pot to a boil, lower heat, and simmer, covered, for about eight minutes. In the meantime, chop up some green beans. Add them to the pan and continue cooking for about two more minutes. Drain the pot, remove the green beans to a serving bowl, and run cold water on the eggs. When they're cool enough to handle, whack them all over with the back of a spoon, peel them, and chop them up roughly. Add to the green beans; dress with vinaigrette, salt and pepper; maybe add some chopped parsley if you want some; eat in as warm and immediate a fashion as possible.

After that, I lay on the couch for an hour or so, reading Mansfield Park and digesting slowly until it was time to go. I didn't cramp up; I didn't die; I was fine and well and had nearly enough energy to do everything. It was a good idea.