“The Bear” showed us how easy it is to care for people, three eggs at a time. Using Sydney’s technique, we can appreciate the simple elegance and the expertise involved in this brunch staple.
By MELANIE MCFARLAND
If you believe that food is a love language – and if you don’t, I’m not sure I want to know you – then you’ll recognize the “Omelette” episode of “The Bear” as an off-season Valentine to culinary nurturers. The title, which uses the French spelling of the dish, hooks to a scene midway through the episode’s 39 minutes when Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) makes an omelet for Natalie (Abby Elliott).
As is true of every part of this show, the details involved in this exchange matter. With the restaurant due to open in a couple of hours, everyone is exhausted and anxious. Offscreen the call goes out that the family meal is ready but Nat, always the project manager, is chained to her desk. She looks ashen. “I just haven’t eaten,” she explains when Syd asks if she’s OK.
An equally busy Sydney responds without a second thought. “Let me make you something,” she insists. Natalie asks for an omelet.
To viewers, this request yields a chance to luxuriate in Sydney’s calm, assured effort as she whisks a trio of eggs in a sieve set over a bowl, then fires up a burner and throws a few generous tablespoons of butter into a pan.
Series creator Christopher Storer’s direction ensures that every sensory pleasure comes through – the sizzle of a solid melting into oil, the shooshing of Sydney’s stir, the chives crunching as her knife chops through a bundle. Circumstances lead us to infer that Sydney is surrounded by hustling teammates but where she’s cooking is an oasis of quiet.
She plates the omelet, rubs a pat of butter across the top, and finishes it with the chopped chives and – here’s the fun part – sour cream and onion potato chips crumbled over the top along with a few grinds of fresh pepper.
She takes it to Natalie along with what looks like a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice combined with beet juice. And when Nat digs in for her first bite, she delivers her compliments to the chef by saying, “I could cry.”
Situating Sydney’s cooking scene at the heart of “Omelette” emphasizes the second season’s throughlines about service and focus. Ten minutes later, as she and her business partner Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) are fixing a table together, she tells him that making that omelet for Nat was “the best part of my day.”
“You love taking care of people,” he says with understanding. Professional chefs do what they do for many reasons but a common thread is a desire to nourish and satisfy through their cooking. “The Bear” performs a similar version of caretaking for its viewers with this sequence. Taking the simplest of ingredients – three eggs, some butter, and a garnish you can score at your local convenience store in its most basic version – can yield something wonderful enough for the person who eats it to hail your genius.
https://www.salon.com/2023/07/06/the-bear-omelet/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/bear-boursin-omelet-potato-chips/
