‘Brrr!’ It was chilly in my room and it was really very dark outside. 

The fire in the hearth was looking pretty lazy and maybe even a bit sad. Cook wouldn’t be able to say it was a happy chatterbox fire the way it looked right now. 

Winter is definitely coming to our cold mountain castle.

Then I heard my tummy grumble and even though it was still so dark I just knew I could not possibly wait for breakfast with Sophie and Annabel! 

I jumped out of bed, pulled on my woolly dressing gown and big sheepskin slippers, and tried ever so hard to not gallop to the kitchens. I did not want to wake Cook if she was enjoying a lie-in. Nobody would ever wish to wake Cook.

Then I remembered that it was only Tuesday and even Cook was up and about when the fires were falling asleep. My friend Serena told me that. 

I think Serena spends too much time learning to be a cook with Cook and that she should join me in our schoolroom. To be honest, my bigger sister Annabel can be a bit of a bore about mathematics and engineering. She says they’ll make her a better queen and I say ‘well that isn’t much fun for right now is it? And wouldn’t you like to come outside for a ride with me and the dragon Starnberg?’

Which is normally when Sophie makes Annabel come outside with me because it is nice to have dragon friends, but honestly I could swear Annabel prefers reading books to being outdoors. Not me!

Sophie says I should say ‘Not I’, but I never remember the rules because the words just come out of my mouth.

Anyway, after I’d turned the seventh turn on the way through the castle to the kitchens I heard an ‘ahem’. 

Please don’t let it be Sophie, I thought. She’d really tell me off if she thought I was going to wake Cook from her sleep on purpose.

But it was Cook! Which was nice because I did want to see her and it meant Sophie wouldn’t talk at me about ‘leaving the kitchens alone, they’re frightfully busy feeding everyone’. I really don’t think Sophie remembers what it is like to be a small girl who is hungry at the wrong time of the morning and what the absolute agony is like of a grumbling tummy until everyone else bothers to wake up for breakfast!

‘Hello Cook!’

‘No need to shout at me. And what may I ask brings you to the kitchens at this time of the morning and still neither bathed nor dressed, young madam?’

You see, Cook is plenty scary enough for me to not worry about Sophie telling me off now. Anyone would forget that I am an actual princess in this castle. I mean, actually, I forget too, quite often, but most usually I forget in the mountains or in the kitchen. You would think I would try to remember because apparently it is an actual thing to be a princess, but I just forget. A lot.

‘My tummy’s grumbling Cook. I’m ever so sorry.’

And then Cook’s face split into the most enormous grin and she said that nothing would make her happier than teaching me how to make ‘eye of the sun’.

‘Eye of the what Cook?’ I could have sworn she’d said ‘sun’.

‘Eye of the sun miss. You heard me. Can’t you think of anything in the kitchen which is like a hot ball of gold?’

You see? I was having lessons and it wasn’t even mathematics with Sophie. I tried moderately hard to thing about anything which might be hot and golden and pulled a blank. And I started to feel a bit sorry for my friend Serena because being here was like living in an English lesson all of the time.

‘Nope. I’m too hungry to think about poetry Cook.’

Cook laughed and said she knew I was a clever little ships-mate and how about I fetch her an egg from over that counter there. If I ever meet a pirate I will understand them immediately because Cook really does act like she is queen of her own ship or something. I do not know what is a ‘ships-mate’ so I must ask Sophie because she will know.

‘You are in for a rare treat this morning your highness.’ Oh! Cook remembered. I mustn’t be in trouble anymore. So I gave her the egg and wondered where Serena was. 

I needed:

One egg,

One slice of bread,

More than 30 grams of butter,

Frying pan, over medium heat.

Cook fetched a frying pan (she said it was too heavy for me) and put it on the stove top. 

‘Over a happy, chatty fire, it is to be sure’ and then she said that you would have to use a medium heat to cook the egg properly. I do not know what is a medium heat for a stove but your adult will know what to do!

Cook says you are not to do this without an adult, because of the hot stove top and the frying pan.

When the frying pan was sitting safely on the stove top Cook told me to

‘put in a big dab of butter so the butter melts and covers all the frying pan. 30 grams of butter should get things going nicely.’

And then we had to wait until the butter melted and little bubbles started to dance around in the liquid butter.

‘Right. Now me hearty, you cut out a circle from the middle of the bread.’ 

Cook handed me something round she called a ‘cookie cutter’ and told me to get on with it. 

I was a bit puzzled until I saw that one end of the cookie cutter was sharp. I pressed the sharp end down on the bread slice and suddenly a round hole was in the middle of the bread! Now that is very clever. What a nice kitchen trick.

I put the hole-y bread into the hot buttery frying pan and Cook said 

‘Let it sizzle for a bit.’ 

When I thought I couldn’t possibly hold out any longer before I just gobbled up the hot bread even if I had to burn my tongue, Cook turned the bread over so the other side could cook and told me to crack open an egg. 

‘Fetch a tea-cup, young lady.’ 

So I did and then Cook showed me how to open an egg. You tap the eggshell on the drinking edge of the tea-cup, tap once, tap twice, tap three times. 

Cook held the egg over the tea-cup, put her thumbnails gently into the little cracked line in the egg shell, pulled both sides away from each other and the egg just fell very politely into the tea-cup. 

‘You might need a bit of practise with that egg tapping, but you can still cook it if the yellow egg yolk breaks.’

‘Pour the egg inside the hole in the bread.’

I looked down and saw the gooey raw egg had stayed inside the hole in the bread.

‘Cook? Is that why it called ‘Eye of the Sun Egg’?’

Cook just grinned at me again. 

‘When the eggy whites are solid and there are no see-through bits, then your rare treat is ready for eating missy.’

I could hardly wait. For a very dark morning this has been a very long, hungry adventure! 

‘If I eat quickly can I help John feed the morning hay to all the horses?’

‘Not dressed like that, young lady.’

So I knew I’d be in trouble if I ate my first breakfast too quickly. 

And do you know what? I’m extremely happy I didn’t bolt my food. ‘Eye of the Sun egg’ really stopped my tummy grumbling! And it was particularly delicious with some tomato sauce!