The art of the egg

Sunday morning this past weekend I was reading Organic Gardening and came across an article on eggs: terminology, organic vs free-range, different birds' eggs we can eat, etc. I began to reminisce about how we bought eggs when I was a child. Up the road resided "the egg lady," and we could go anytime to choose eggs and leave money in the little box if she was not around. We did not question whether they were fresh or how the chickens were treated because we could see all the chickens right there! Egg shells of different birds have beautiful and varied shells (see the quail eggs in the article). And farm-fresh eggs are so tasty—they've definitely appeared on more menus in recent years (Cypress on the Hill in Chapel Hill offers a delicious appetizer that features a local, fresh egg on top). Needless to say I was inspired and immediately fixed poached eggs on English muffins for breakfast.