After all that, she hardboiled the eggs

Not poached.

     Sunday morning the dog cleared her throat by my bedside at 4:40 a.m. and I did what I always do. Rolled out of bed, got dressed, took her on her walk, fed her, and then made the executive decision not to try to go back to sleep, but to head up to my office, to email my blog post, finish the column and, taking a break at 6 a.m.-ish, go downstairs to see after coffee, which involved reheating yesterday's.
       Breakfast seemed an option — sometimes I wait for the wife, sometimes I don't. She had bought Muenster cheese the day before and that settled it for me. I put a slice on a piece of toast, sprinkled with with oregano, and browned it in the broiler. Heaven.
     And hour later, when my wife got up, she asked if I had breakfast. I admitted I had, seduced by the presence of Muenster cheese. 
      "I think I'll poach an egg," she said. 
      "You mean steal it, perhaps from a game preserve?" I replied. 
      I was playing off the dual meanings of "poach" — to nab something, usually an animal, that doesn't belong to you. And "poach" as to cook something by simmering it in water.
     Leading to today's episode of my favorite game — what's the connection? And which usage is older?
     Honestly, I was stumped. The Oxford English Dictionary starts by tracing the word to the French, pocher, meaning, to enclose in a small bag — we see a remnant of that in the expression "a pig in a poke." Plus, don't forget, "pouch."

     Then the cooking meaning: "Poach 1. trans. To cook (an egg) by dropping it, without the shell, into boiling water. [F. pocher, in this sense, is usually explained as referring to the enclosure of the yolk in the white as in a bag.]" The usage is traced to 1390.
     Then a meaning having to do with poking things with a stick or finger, such as an 1859 usage, "We'll poach the fire"
    Then stamping with the feet and, finally, a third section:
     "III. 9 intr. To encroach or trespass (on the lands or rights of another) in order to possess oneself unlawfully or unfairly of something, esp. in order to steal game; hence, to take game or fish illegally, or by unsportsmanlike devices." 
      This usage is far more recent, 1611: "to poche into, or incroach upon,, another mans imployment, practise, or trade" 
    I should probably point out that "pocket" comes from here, with a familiar usage showing up in Shakespeare's Henry IV ""Have you enquir'd yet who pick'd my Pocket?"
    If we want to gaze into the more distant past — and we probably shouldn't, especially if you're having that poached egg — I see that poc in Old English was a pustule, or ulcer, or other little bags of skin filled with fluid, going back to the year 1000, hence the word "pox." I have to think they're somehow related.