We eat more eggs, more omelets and scrambled eggs, traveling in the Subcontinent than we do at home. We’re not sure why, but part of it probably has to do with having different patterns of eating when we’re traveling. At home we can eat whenever we like, simply going to the kitchen and cooking something up or looking for leftovers. But when we’re on the road, we have to pay more attention to breakfast, lunch, and supper, to the hours of the day when food in restaurants and tea shops is being freshly made. As good as food can be in the Subcontinent, it’s also true it’s not always around when we want it to be. That’s where eggs come in: A local tea shop will often cook up an omelet at a moment’s notice. Eaten with a chapati or two and a cup of tea, it tastes so good.

Then after we come back home, we eat more eggs and omelets for a while than usual because we’re in the habit. Eggs are so easy, and scrambled eggs and omelets from the Subcontinent are full of flavor. These are like the eggs Jeffrey had at a small tea shop in rural Andhra Pradesh, about a day’s drive north of Chennai (Madras).