1 Do you incorporate your ingredients into the egg mixture? Or do you leave them to sit like sailors on the flotsam on the yellow sea? The answer divides humanity into two distinct groups. I know the correct version is to let them sit. But sometimes the correct way is not the best way. Use olive oil to cook and moisten with butter as you serve it. Life is about co....mpromise. In some instances... (I had to break the above word with periods because it was scanned as a url with 'about" by your system--hilarious!)

2 I'm afraid I prefer to have my filling be filling, and the omelet skin be omelet skin. I personally love to melt cheese on top of the yellow sea, but the husband doesn't like that, so I'm doing it less often these days. Plenty of black pepper, and salt nearby on the table. Mushrooms should be present. Onions must be present.

3 Onion must ALWAYS be present. I'm awful with eggs. Fuss fuss fuss. I want them with no moist egg bits but also no browned bits. At all. And some people have that touch and some don't. I don't. I also have LOTS of trouble turning it over. For my own egg needs, the ideal way is to pour in the eggs, let them set enough to flip, and flip the whole thing over like a pancake. Then I lay the cheese on right away, since that part was just sitting against the pan and is very hot and will MEILT that cheese. Then go the on-yums (previously browned) and whatever else I wanted in there. The folding part I'm usually ok with. But by then my nice neat omelet is all busted up and twisted anyway so it doesn't matter. Walter, who dislikes cooking but knows a great deal about it, makes fabulous eggs. Fluffy, light, perfectly cooked. He doesn't mind if any other ingredients are mixed in or folded. To me, once you mix them in, it's scrambled rather than omelet. Not that I mind, it's just a distinctly different dish. Imagine my surprise when I realized I love frittatas! Because they're BROWNED eggs! Then, of course, it hit me that so is egg foo yung, so why was I surprised? Hmmm. Think you could talk them into a compromise frittata?

4 Incorporating the ingredients into the omelet doesn't result in scrambled eggs! Not unless you wind up with a panfull of clumps. If you do it right, you wind up with one homogeneous omelet--an object of absolute perfection. Risen slightly, over two-inches thick, with a moist center....Mmmmm! Incorporate 1/4-inch butter pieces in the mixture, or non-salty cheese bits and you have something quite remarkable! And no part of it should ever be browned! Save that for the edges of sunny-side-up eggs! In parts of Switzerland, they have a regular little performance art ceremony that goes with the making of the omelet. Teenage boys with shiny copper bowls whisk the eggs for five minutes, playing out various rhythms with their whisks against the bowls. Teenage girls with copper pan on long handles, cook your omelet over a roaring wood fire with a continuous back-and-forth motion. The result: A three-inch thick omelet of absolute perfection--with a floor show to boot! And never a burnt spot! If the omelet can open up and the ingredients can spill out, I want no part of it! Seems to me to be perfect for the control freaks among us though since you can pick out what they choose...Relationships are based on trust, though. And as the chef, don't you already have complete control over what goes into it?

5 I always like my eggs browned. I notice that nobody has mentioned the secret ingrediant of fluffy eggs, water. Never ever substitute milk for water.

6 I dunno, Darrell: the Swiss-style omelets almost sound too big for me to finish. But I bet it'd be fun to try one. What do they put in those things? Do you get to choose, or do they pick the ingredients?

7 You could always share;-) With your travel party, of course. You choose: They are made to order. But the 'usual' is Italian parsley, chives and chervil, I think. Europeans! I think I ordered a Denver omelet. I didn't want anyone to think I was sensitive to the fact that they didn't know what I was talking about.

8 To be fair, I've been told that what I witnessed was just an imitation of the show they put on at the Hotel la Mere Poulard in Mont Saint Michel, Normandy. They have a few tiny pictures here-- http://www.mere-poulard.com/restaurant.asp The Swiss omelet was a similar size so you can judge for yourself. Feel free to look around, or maybe book a room. It doesn't hurt to start spending your book royalties now. If you include some slurs about the Patriot Act, et al, you could even buy the place(I read a book review Sunday where such a slur was included in a slice-of-life book about the 80's.) We will forgive you. But only if you have lots of pie 'scenes' and maybe some pie sex.

9 Say what you will about whores the French are when it comes to nuclear material; they can do things with eggs that mere culinary mortals only dream about. I happen to like baked eggs. I've thought of learning to make 'em myself, but I don't know if that would make them less special . . . I have no comment to make on "pie sex," since there are myriad directions I could go with it, and I'm paralyzed by the endless possibilities.