An Anglo Indian Breakfast Delight; A Curried Omelet

Oh, Big Bear Lake. The land of tall pines, crisp mountain air, and apparently… grown adults melting down because their iPhones have suddenly become overpriced calculators. Yep, the entire town lost cell service today. Not just a dead zone on the way to your Airbnb in Moonridge. Not just your cousin’s phone with “mysterious roaming charges.” Nope—all of Big Bear. This is life in our rural mountain communities here in 2025. Sometimes we don’t have power for days. Some days our phones go to the zombie apocalypse. I mean, I have to be honest, nothing surprises me these days. And having 0 bars is one of those things. So what do you do on a Sunday morning when you don’t have any power or cell phone service? Well, of course, you come up with unique omelet ideas.

You’d think we’d been thrown into a full-on apocalypse here in this alpine forest. I got to be honest, Karen- I see more wild donkeys roaming the boulevard than zombies. The way people are acting, you’d swear zombies were clawing at the local Starbucks instead of—wait for it—just tourists not being able to FaceTime…

Now, if you’ve lived in these mountains your whole life like I have, this is nothing new. Summertime here already gave us a sampler platter of power outages (think of it as “rustic ambiance,” darling). Back in the day, when the power went out, you didn’t run to Yelp to complain—you lit some candles, ate all the ice cream before it melted, maybe pulled Dad’s finger way too many times and called it a party. Welcome to the 90s. We thought we were living it up. We didn’t know what we were missing out on on The Tik Tok.

Here’s the deal: No cell service is not the end of civilization. It’s actually called “entertainment circa 1992.” Allow me to reintroduce you:

Go outside. There’s this giant fresh-air-filled playground called “nature.” Crazy, I know. It’s full of tall pine trees. It’s a perfect place to walk your dog. You know what, you might actually enjoy the zen of a mountain forest. The sounds of squirrels and blue jays instead of alerts from Facebook on your phone. Who knew?

Play Monopoly with the family. Bonus points if your brother with Asperger’s gets cranky and throws the board across the family room.

Read a book. Like, an actual book with pages. (Yes, they still exist. Amazon sells them. Irony noted.) I recommend the new Stephen King, Never Flinch.

Walk your dog. Your dog is thrilled you’re not glued to Instagram right now.

Talk to your neighbors. Shocking, yes, but humans can speak to each other without emojis.

So, while the Wi-Fi deprived tourists are running around like it’s The Hunger Games and where the fuck can they buy a weed cocktail and or charge their Tesla’s, the rest of us mountain folk are sipping our homemade Pumpkin Spiced Lattes, enjoying the quiet, and wondering if maybe—just maybe—this break from connectivity is the best thing that’s happened to this town all autumn. And in our house, we might just be creating unique omelets for brunch.

What am I doing this fall for a few hours when the cell phone service is down? Well, I’m making a gourmet Anglo-Indian Sunday brunch. Yes, that means Curried Omelets for the family!

Oh, the eternal breakfast debate: omelet vs. omelette. One is apparently American shorthand for “folded eggs with stuff inside,” and the other is the fancy French spelling you use when you want to impress brunch guests into thinking you studied abroad and didn’t just spend two weeks in Paris drinking café crèmes and Instagramming pain au chocolat. Spoiler: they’re the same thing. The only real difference is whether you’re eating it in a greasy diner with bottomless coffee (omelet) or in a bistro where some guy named Jean-Pierre side-eyes you for pronouncing it wrong (omelette). Basically, the extra “te” is just garnish—like homegrown parsley straight from the garden.

Curried Unique Omelets

8 eggs

2 teaspoons of ghee

2 teaspoons of olive oil in a squeeze bottle

1/4 cup fresh high-quality tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup chopped oyster mushrooms

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons fresh curry powder

2 teaspoons Greek yogurt

6 curry leaves, torn

1/2 a white onion, diced fine

1 green chili, diced fine

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon grated fresh garlic

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

1/8 cup freshly torn cilantro

Are you ready for a unique omelet adventure time? Firstly, preheat your oven to broil high. Get your cast-iron pan very hot on the stove and add the other 1 teaspoon of ghee. Add your reserved chili pieces and diced onions to the hot cast-iron pan and cook well for five minutes. Mix in your curry powder along with your ginger and garlic, adding the water slowly to temper it as the garlic and curry powder cook down. This step should take ten minutes as you fry your masala. Set your masala aside to cool for ten minutes.

Spread the 1 teaspoon of ghee up the sides of the cast iron pan so that eventually your omelet will not stick. Next, in a blender, blend up the eggs with salt and the pepper until thick and frothy. Add your masala to those eggs and gently stir.

Now you are ready to add the whipped eggs to your hot cast-iron skillet. Return the cast-iron skillet to a medium flame. Garnish the top with the torn curry leaves. Let this sit just five minutes until it starts to set. Meanwhile, drizzle the olive oil from a squeeze bottle around the edges of the omelet so it does not stick to the pan. If you are adding additional veggies such as tomatoes, sweet potatoes or kale, this is the time to add them to your omelet.

Now you are ready to set your Anglo-Indian omelette in the oven. When you do this, turn the broiler down to low. Cook 5-10 minutes until just set. Cut your Anglo-Indian omelette into slices with a pizza cutter.  When you are ready to serve this Anglo Indian Omelette Curry, layer a few slices of the omelet on your plate. Garnish with cilantro.