I know there are mayonnaise naysayers, who look disgusted at the sight of mayonnaise. Who give you holier than thou looks when you eat mayonnaise. And then there are the Miracle Whip fanatics, who preach the gospel of one brand of mayonnaise over another.

I have been neither. I like mayonnaise on some things, particularly if it is flavored, but not on others. I am just sort of “eh” on mayo.

Until today, my friends. When I made my own mayonnaise. And even my mom, whose worst case scenario for my life is me getting married and having children and being a homemaker, was impressed by my cookery. And she found my question “Have you ever made mayonnaise?” totally a ridiculous query.

Back up: I got snow peas in my farm share this week. I like snow peas and I haven’t made them in a while, so I thought I would look up some recipes. Usually I saute them with sugar, because I am a freak like that.

Anyway, it’s hot here. Way, way too hot. So I didn’t want a whole cooking production (IRONY!). But I found a recipe for snow peas stuffed with crab egg salad. Holy moly. I love crab (and had imitation on hand) and I love egg salad. I had to try it.

At this point, one should realize the snow peas, which were once the focus of the dish, completely fade to the background as some low carb bread alternative for egg salad. Snow peas are tasty, but anything I can use as a delivery device for egg salad is fine by me. They’re actually sort of awkward for this purpose, but totally pretty. If I were having a party, this would be an excellent fancy appetizer.
The one part of this equation I failed to notice was that I had no mayonnaise. I failed to notice this, because I usually use plain yogurt instead of mayonnaise in egg salad. I failed to notice as well that I used all my yogurt 2 days ago to make tzatziki sauce (which I kick ass at, btw) and another batch of serrano cheese kale-spinach (which was better consistency wise since I didn’t use the ribs of the kale). I use yogurt in everything, since a million years of greek cooking can’t be wrong, I figure. So I have some mustard and green onion and crab and hard boiled egg all mixed and dressed snow peas. And it all ain’t jiving together since there is no mayo. It is utterly weak, crumbly, and pathetic.
And I am a little scared by making my own mayo. I mean that’s raw eggs, people. I am supposed to fear those. And all emulsification seems mystical. And then, there’s the fact that if I make my own mayo, I discover EXACTLY how much oil is in mayo, and that’s one of those things I may be better off not knowing.

But my culinary hero Alton Brown has a recipe. And I try it assuming it will fail since all I read is about how making mayo is really hard. But my egg separation is totally awesome. I might have high fived myself after this completely righteous egg seperation, were that humanly possible. And I begin whisking. And HOLY SHIT EMULSIFICATION.

People, I have no idea what it’s like to birth a calf, or save a dying bird, but I feel the emulsification of oil and egg into living mayonnaise must be similar. In the “I stay inside all day and think touching dirty animals is gross” sort of poindexter way. And people, I am so that way. I am also of the way that I don’t get many religious experiences. But the sudden thickness of liquid into colloidal suspension is freaking great.
So make some mayo today. It is fucking beautiful.