To impress their guests, cooks take a crack at late-risers’ meal

Most chefs I know refer to brunch disdainfully as the b-word.

Aside from the fact that they generally are not morning people, their aversion comes down to this: Eggs can mean trouble.

Diners are ultra-picky about eggs. Coordinating their preparation (two at a time, in various styles, to precise degrees of doneness) requires finesse and the kind of patience that usually is in short supply after an arduous Saturday night.

Eggs and the people who eat them can be unforgiving; the former might go from great to awful in an instant, and the latter might have no problem sending back mistakes with the flick of a hand. If you want to test a chef’s mettle, hand him eggs, not ...