Father-daughter stare down egg-cracking record

By Christian Vosler

Kitsap Sun

SILVERDALE — The staccato, rapid-fire cracking of eggs is a ubiquitous sound in the kitchen of the Oak Table Cafe in Silverdale.

On an average day, owner Ross McCurdy, who honed his skills at the original Oak Table Cafe in Sequim, says the restaurant can go through 2,000 eggs. And with hungry customers waiting, time is imperative.

“They’re all cracked one-handed, because nobody has time to crack two-handed,” McCurdy said.

All that repetition led to McCurdy being crowned the fastest one-handed egg-cracker in the world by Guinness World Records in 2009. And now his skills will be tested when he takes to the set of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s show “The F Word” in June.

Ramsay, the British chef known for his profanity-laced tirades, will host McCurdy and his daughter, Mira, for a special live Father’s Day episode.

The pair will compete against Ramsay and his daughter, Tillie, for a new world record: the most eggs cracked one-handed in one minute by a team of two.

“It’s going to be awesome. I can’t wait. I hope we get in the book,” McCurdy said.

“The F Word” features celebrities and families in cook-offs with Ramsay. A producer for the showrunner reached out to McCurdy after finding his current world record and seeing his family online, he said.

To be named champion, the teams must adhere to a specific set of rules. Eggs must be cracked into separate containers and the shells disposed of cleanly with one hand held behind the back.

Officials from Guinness World Records will be on hand to enforce the parameters and declare a winner.

All on live television.

“I’m nervous that I’m going to say something weird,” Mira McCurdy said, laughing. Still, she said, “it’s kind of cool” to be meeting an A-list celebrity.

McCurdy’s eldest daughter grew up in the kitchen alongside her father, learning to crack eggs and make her own breakfast dishes.

In preparation for the competition, the 12-year-old has been going to the restaurant and cracking hundreds of eggs after school with her dad.

“Since he is a cook and we both like cooking, I just kind of followed after him,” Mira McCurdy said.

The Oak Table is a project of Ross McCurdy and his wife, Nikki Nagler-McCurdy, whose parents own the original restaurant in Sequim. After working in Sequim, the pair opened their own branch in Kingston in 2009. They moved to Silverdale in 2015.

Back when he was starting, McCurdy would crack thousands of eggs by himself, one after another, to make batters for pancakes and other dishes. In 2009, he cracked 32 eggs one-handed in one minute to set the world record.

“Eventually it’s just kind of mind-numbing,” he said.

Ross McCurdy describes himself as a “ham for attention.” In addition to egg cracking, he also holds the world records for most pancakes made in an hour (1,092), farthest distance to catch a self-thrown grape in his mouth (68 feet) and most weight deadlifted with just his pinkies (198 pounds).

His uses his record-breaking attempts as an opportunity to raise money for charity, but also to impress upon his children that they can do anything they want if they set their mind to it.

“That’s really why I started in the first place: to show my kids that anything’s possible,” McCurdy said.

The pair is confident in their chances on Father’s Day, if only because the task is so ubiquitous at the restaurant. They haven’t received any direct communication from Ramsay yet, so McCurdy feels safe with some playful smack talk.

“My career is cracking eggs one-handed, his career is yelling at kids,” McCurdy said. “I think we have the advantage here.”

A representative of Ramsay didn’t respond to requests for comment from the Kitsap Sun.

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Distributed by The Associated Press