National Egg Month

Okay, here’s the deal. Today is actually National English Toffee Day, but I just couldn’t bear to face any more dessert after December and Christmas and all the commensurate sugar-saturated products that come along with it. I am so sugared out that even my mid-afternoon sugar craving has disappeared!

What I have been craving lately are eggs. Nothing fancy. Just good quality, organic, free range eggs, preferably from a local farm. In my perfect world, that would be my farm, but since my husband is adamant that we not collect any more animals (for some reason, he thinks that 3 cats, 2 large dogs and a horse is excessive), I am forced to purchase cold eggs out in the world, rather than collecting them still warm from the nest. *SIGH* Anyway, since this month is National Egg Month, I am exercising my Wild Card and writing about eggs instead of toffee.

I like my eggs scrambled. I heat a shamefully large portion of butter in my tiny little cast iron frypan until it is nicely browned and then I add eggs that I have pre-scrambled in a bowl with a touch of milk. I used to add salt and pepper, but since I’ve started sharing with the wee one, I’ve nixed both. Back in the day, when I was being all responsible and WeightWatchers-y and stuff, I would soft boil my eggs and eat them on a piece of multigrain toast with a little bit of cream cheese and salsa. Actually, when Eva and I were roommates, this was our breakfast of choice 5 out 7 days of the week.

Besides being the perfect breakfast food, eggs are extraordinarily versatile. They can be used in every single meal in every imaginable variation. There are simply too many to list! And not even chicken eggs either. Of the variety of eggs people eat, the common ones in addition to chicken eggs (that I can think of off the top of my head) are turkey eggs (as noted in Dea and Janelle’s Egg Nog Blog), quail eggs, caviar – which is actually sturgeon eggs, tobiko – which is flying fish roe, salmon roe, and Ostrich eggs. I’m sure there’s at least a zillion more.

Eggs are symbolic being as how they represent the beginning of life. I think that’s why they’re associated with Easter – y’know, rebirth and all that. Sometimes I wonder if there is something somehow sacrilegious about eating eggs in celebration of the resurrection. But I guess it doesn’t really count if they’re chocolate.

Eggs are good cooked, raw, pickled, you name it. And eggs are really beautiful. Even the lowly, common chicken egg. There is something really satisfying about the simple oval shape of them, the small speckles on the shell I really enjoyed photographing the eggs from my fridge. I think it might actually be worth doing a photoessay of them.

I hope you enjoy them.
xoxo
B