one-eyed jack

In games with playing cards, the one-eyed jack is the jack of hearts or the jack of spades. The male figure on the cards should be shown in profile exposing only one eye.

The most common place you'll hear this term is in a home poker game. A typical usage: "Ok boys, it's Seven Card Stud and one-eyed jacks are wild."

All the face cards have proper names going back hundreds of years. The proper names for these cards:

• Jack of Hearts - "La Hire"
• Jack of Spades - "Ogier"

Refers also to a oncoming car with only one headlight burning. This is what Tom Waits speaks of in Burma Shave.

a narrative

BZZZT BZZZT BZZZT

Eyes opening as the evil alarm clock wakes you from slumber. Swatting the snooze, rising to unsteady feet. Stumbling through the not-so-darkness, there's no need for lights yet. Lumbering to the kitchen, your mouth begs for OJ to slake its thirst. Gulp gulp ahhh, the gears in your head begin turning.

Finding the bread bag,
    spinning it open,
  remove bread,
    spinning closed, twist tie securely.

Gingerly holding the slices, rending an uneven center-hole. Scrunching up the softwhiteness to a hard little ball. Chew-chew-chewing the ball, ahh the wonder of wonderbread.

Back to the fridge, squinting against the cold, yellow light. OJ goes in, egg carton comes out. Oh yea, don't forget the butter.
Butter the bread, both sides. ( ...Crispiness is essential...).

Click click goes the pilot light as a blue flame flickers to life, igniting its neighbors to form a dancing, wavering halo. Searching for a pan, trying to keep the clangs from stirring the others. Cold steel warms quickly, you must work fast. Slipping the slice into the pan, the delicious buttery smell wakes your stomach, it growls impatiently.

A dollop of oil goes in the hole to receive the egg. Crack the egg one-handed, pretending you are a chef, performing on tv. The innards flow out into their new bready-nooks. Feel the sizzzzzle of the oil as it spatters madly, leaping in the air, bursting with excitement.

   Flip it with a flickety-flair, need an even cook on both sides.
   Transfer to the plate, the eggy aroma filling your nostrils.

As you gently fork-cut your first bite, gooey yolk oozing/seeping into the toast. You are ten-years old again, legs swinging free as you eat and watch the sun rising over the dew covered lawn.

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Also called an "egg in a nest" (thanks ac_hyper), "egg in bread" (thanks haze), "toad in the hole" (from bis' wu), or "hurricane eggs" (thanks Spork_Avenger).
Some simple directions:

Materials:

• 1 egg
• 1 slice of bread
• oil (optional)
• stove
• pan

-Start by making a hole in the center of the bread. It should be approximately 1.5" to 2" in diameter. Eat or discard the removed bits of bread.
-Butter the bread on both sides to make sure that it toasts well in the pan.
-Get the pan hot on a burner, then place the bread in it. You can add oil to keep the egg from sticking if you want. But remember that the bread will soak some of it up.
-Crack the egg open into the hole in the bread.
-Cook to your liking (some like it yolky, others don't). Salt and pepper to taste.
-Enjoy your One Eyed Jack!

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Remember, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Make yours worthwhile.

Pucker Up Baby! This quality product was inspired by the bucolic industrial splendor of Wilkes-Barre, PA.
--Printed on the label of One-Eyed Jack beverages.

"One-Eyed Jack" is also the appellation of, despite what the label might indicate, an insidiously sweet line of ciders, put out by the "Thick Head Beverage Company", in the late 1990s. Taking advantage of the "alcopop" craze that swept across the U.S. after having brewed (no pun intended) in Europe for several years prior, One-Eyed Jack was at first a lemon "cider" with a sugary palate and almost chemical (think "Lemon Pledge") smell. "Brewed" in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, it was almost certainly marketed and priced to attract the less-discerning portions of the Zima crowd -- assuming such a lowly common denominator could even exist.

Indeed, such a crowd did exist. One-Eyed Jack was, strangely enough, quite bearable when consumed with pizza, so it made for an excellent, occasional change of pace for college students. Eventually, several variations of One-Eyed Jack came out, in addition to the Lemon brew, specifically the predictable orange, raspberry and apple flavours.

All things must pass, however, and the author of this writeup has not seen One-Eyed Jack on the shelves for several years now, so assumably, this line of beverages has thankfully met its maker. If you know otherwise, please let me know.

I love all recipes that are experiments in culinary alchemy. Take humble ingredients that are perhaps a bit old, perhaps a bit stale, combine them lovingly in a frying pan, and suddenly you have delicious gold which may or may not be from the luster of fat and cholesterol.

But I especially love eggy in a box (that's what we called it at home, though an informal survey of the internet tells me that "eggy in a basket" is how one refers to this novelty in the vernacular) because fried toast with an egg center was a cornerstone of my upbringing. A very squishy cornerstone to build anything on, but a cornerstone nonetheless. I guess the best way to sum up this dish is to say that it is for brits and wasps what migas are for tex mex.

Let's do it

You will need: a frying pan, slices of sandwich bread (bottom-of-the-bagers if you got them), as many eggs as sandwich bread, and butter.

Do you have a frying pan wide enough to hold at least two slices of sandwich bread? If not, you'll be singletoasting it the whole way—a grim prospect. Also, you run the risk of having the corners of your ill-fitting slice of bread lifted up by the sides of the pan. Better start pouring some cereal, chump.

For those of you who are better endowed, whip out that massive frying pan of yours and put it on a burner set to "mediumish" to warm up. Now's a good time to brew up a nice pot of coffee.

You need to butter the bread on both sides. A quick way to do that is to melt a square of butter in your pan and coat the surface with a thin film. Drop a slice of bread in the center and give it a quick turn then flip it over and do the same to the other side. Put the slice of bread on a plate off to the side and repeat until you have a stack of slices.

With a knife, cut a square out of the center of each slice of bread. You can also use a cup or a cookie cutter if you want a more whimsical shape. Place the hollowed-out bread in the pan to fry. Drop a small amount of butter and crack an egg into the center of each. Go ahead and toast up the bread centers wherever you have room left in the pan.

If you've fried an egg before, you know when to flip. You'll appreciate, I'm sure, how much easier it is to flip the eggs when they're framed by a delicious, buttery crust of bread. What you do with the toasted centers is up to you, but here are a few suggestions:

• spread with jam or nutella
• top with baked beans
• spread with peanut butter and add sliced banana
• sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar
• eat plain and use it to mop up the runny yolk

Enjoy.

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Apparently this little recipe has many aliases—hence, this node got merged with "one-eyed jack."

One-eyed jack? What an absolutely barbaric name for this kind and gentle creature.