“It is extremely easy and almost foolproof to make in an electric liquidizer, and we give the recipe on page 100. But we feel it is of great importance that you learn how to make hollandaise by hand, for part of every good cook’s general knowledge is a thorough familiarity with the vagaries of egg yolk under all conditions…”

“If you are used to hand-made hollandaise, you may find the liquidizer variety lacks something in quality; this is perhaps due to complete homogenization. But as the technique is well within the capabilities of an eight-year-old child, it has much to recommend it.”

So there!

Perhaps I should get a carton of quail eggs and a very small whisk so that I can fail at making mayonnaise a couple of times without ending up with Too Much Mayonnaise.

I rather suspect that my skeleton would crumble before I got enormously fat. Maybe all of this rich eating is going to catch up with me some day. In the mean time, I continue to smack hips and other non-protected projections on all sorts of things, so I don’t think I’m too fat yet.

I’ve never had a crack at hollandaise — I just don’t like it that much — but mayonnaise is falling off a log easy. Really. I’ve only ever had it fail once, and I just made a second lot and whisked the first one in and rescued it. Do it do it do it (and become enormously fat as everything gets slathered with delicious home made mayonnaise).