I love eating deviled eggs and egg salad, but I had been avoiding making either because it was so much trouble peeling the eggs. I researched the subject online and tried many of the techniques that promised perfectly smooth eggs. I even went so far as to purchase an egg holder for my pressure cooker. None of these “a-ha” techniques were any better than the way I’ve always boiled eggs. Peeling them was a struggle, and they were left looking pockmarked and homely. Then this summer, I visited my friend Kirsten. She had a dozen perfectly peeled eggs in her refrigerator. I thought maybe she had succumbed to buying the mass-market boiled and peeled eggs. But no. Her secret – which I’m now revealing – is that you crack the egg on the bottom (that’s the egg’s larger side, while the top is the more pointed side). I had always cracked my hard-boiled eggs on the side. When I got home, I boiled a dozen eggs to make egg salad, tried cracking the eggs on the bottom, and it was a game changer. The eggs were much easier to peel, but it still took too long to peel them. So the next time I made boiled eggs, I went rogue and didn’t cool the eggs down first. I realized that cooling down the eggs was the only common denominator with my hard-to-peel eggs.