I knew that something was amiss when I asked Roger if he made mayonnaise with a whisk or a mortar and pestle and he looked at me as if I had just asked if he preferred swallowing knives or molten lava. “Are you serious? Use a blender,” he said. And I should have trusted him, since he is a food guru, a homemade mayonnaise enthusiast and, though we have never arm-wrestled to prove it, probably somewhat better endowed with arm strength than I am. But I was supposed to be doing it by hand to better study the emulsifying process for my MOOC, and I had been bolstered by misleading videos of famous chef Nandu Jubany whipping some up in five minutes flat, so I cheerfully embarked on the most brutally work-intensive quarter cup of mayonnaise ever created.

This is a horrible photo, but my wrist was too tired from stirring to hold the camera.

Aside from carpal tunnel syndrome being one of the main ingredients, homemade mayonnaise really is easy. It consists entirely of things that are likely in your kitchen already, namely an egg yolk, some olive oil, a clove or two of garlic (if you like saying the word aioli) and some salt and pepper. And, no joke, it tastes much better than what comes in a jar from the store. When I let Jason taste it, he called it “off the hook,” which is one of the highest compliments that can be bestowed upon a condiment. It was a little salty on its own for my taste (Jason loves salt so much that I think he is part ocean fish), but on an open-faced sandwich with some lemon tofu and lightly sautéed asparagus, it really was delicious. Jason kept making soft moaning sounds throughout the meal, presumably to express pleasure and encourage future mayonnaise making on my part. But I think this is really the kind of culinary experiment that he needs to experience for himself.

And here’s how you can experience it. Let an egg come to room temperature and separate the yolk from the white. Take a clove of garlic and about a ½ teaspoon of salt and smash it into a smooth paste in a bowl or mortar. (You can boil the garlic very briefly if you want to make it easier to pulverize. Nandu Jubany doesn’t do that part, but really, who are you kidding?) Combine the yolk and garlic paste thoroughly, and then start slowly drizzling olive oil into it while you stir or whisk like your life depends on it. What you’re doing is breaking the oil into teeny tiny droplets that become suspended in the water from the egg yolk and garlic. Theoretically, a single egg yolk is such a powerful surfactant that it will stabilize cups upon cups of mayonnaise, so you can keep adding olive oil to your heart’s content until you have as much mayonnaise as you need. When it gets thick and threatens to break apart, you can add a few drops of room temperature water and keep going. Then you season it with some freshly ground pepper. That’s it.

And there is some kind of hard-earned pleasure at watching the emulsion form at your own hands. But seriously? Just use a blender.