By Kent Bernhardt

My favorite food is getting skewered in the media, and I can no longer hold my silence.

For as long as I can remember, the humble and satisfying chicken egg has been my go-to choice for comfort food.  Boiled, fried, scrambled, poached — there is no substitute for its taste and versatility.

It’s hard to find a recipe that doesn’t call for at least one egg to add substance to whatever kitchen concoction you’re trying to assemble, and there is no better way to start your day than with a plate full of them.

Now, this staple of the American diet is the poster child for high grocery prices, and it breaks my heart.

For so long, you could acquire one dozen of them for less than $2. Forty years ago, 12 would cost you around $0.88. Now, you’re lucky to find them for under five bucks.

They’re blaming everything from bird flu to good old-fashioned inflation for the rising prices. All I know is I’ve never craved them more, no matter how hard the price clobbers my wallet.

My love affair with the common egg began way back in my early childhood. I don’t remember this incident, but I’m told I took a tumble off of a second-story roof when I was 3. I had crawled through the not-so-childproof railings of an outside staircase and plunged to the ground, knocking myself unconscious.

Scooped up in someone’s caring arms, I was rushed to the hospital where my great aunt worked as a nurse. I slowly came around and wondered what all the fuss was about. Aunt Anna asked if there was anything I wanted, and I wasted no time requesting an egg, fried if possible, with the yellow slightly runny and the white solid.

My grandfather taught me to make perfect scrambled eggs. “Cook them low and slow,” he told me, a skill I have passed along to my own daughter. You can’t rush perfection.

That same daughter raises chickens at her little house on the prairie in northern Arizona, and she was kind enough to bring her ol’ dad some farm fresh fruit of the chicken during her most recent visit.

I once became serious with a young woman who told me point blank that she couldn’t stand the sight of an egg and refused to have any in the house. When I regained my composure, I concluded there was no marriage material there.

So today, in the year of our Lord 2025, I am declaring war on high egg prices.

I’m not sure how to fight such a war — probably with a spatula — but I will not rest until the world is safe from egg-flation, and you and I can sleep soundly in our beds knowing that our children and grandchildren will know the joy of a plentiful and cheap supply of the one food guaranteed to bring a smile to most every face.

The incredible, edible egg.

Kent Bernhardt is a local broadcast veteran and lives in Salisbury