Chapter 5

Healthy Heart, Healthy Brain

I remember eating my first omelet like it was yesterday.
(What, you don’t?) We were in the kitchen of our New York
City apartment when my mom whisked up an egg to make
an omelet for me. I was seven or eight. My mom was always
afraid of heart disease, having had a father who passed from
it, which probably explained why growing up I never saw
her eating eggs. Their cholesterol-rich yolks, after all, had
been in the national doghouse for decades as a causative
player in heart disease. One night, however, she offered to
cook one for me as a treat.
She calibrated the flame on her beloved cast-iron skillet,
given to her by her own mother, which had been seasoned

with the corn oil that always sat by the stove.* I sat down at
the breakfast bar so that I could watch her and, a couple of
moments later, picked up a knife and fork. As she slid the
plate over to me, my excitement for what was to be my first-
ever egg-eating experience was deflated by a sudden
warning from Mom: “You can’t eat these too often. The fat
and cholesterol in the yolks will clog your little arteries!”
(To her credit she also often told me that trying new foods
would make me a better lover to the future Mrs. Lugavere. I
was always a picky eater, and this was her way of getting
me to loosen up. My mom always had a quirky sense of