Fresh Eggs

Although we live on over 2 acres, there are difficulties that prevent me from raising chickens. First and foremost we're not zoned for livestock. But the beauty of living in a rural area is that there are plenty of people who raise livestock and run small entrepreneurial businesses. Not only are there quite a few egg farms, there are farmers who raise hormone free beef and hogs and produce milk from hormone free cows. If you don't have a freezer to store a side of beef you can split the purchase with a group of neighbors.

The farmer and I were both raised within spitting distance of the city of Chicago but always knew we belonged in the country. The farmer's grandparents were farming immigrants from Poland and my family (on both sides) had been farming in rural Tennesse and Florida for over 200 years. It makes me believe in a cultural memory gene.

The gene however, seems to have skipped a generation in my daughter's case. There are alot of eewwww's pronounced when I bring back fresh eggs from the egg farm. My daughter seems to believe that somehow the eggs from the grocery store have been imparted some special qualities between the producer and the refrigerated case in the store. I'm not quite sure what those qualities might be, but freshness is not among them. The eggs with expiration dates tatooed on them are especially precious to her.

Bad weather prevented me from my mission last week but when I approached on this sunny day I notice that they've probably had the driveway graded. Unlike many of the crumbling barns in the area their barn is very well maintained and it's a beauty. Unfortunately this small farm is directly in the path of the freight train known as development. Just across the highway a large housing development is being built.



This sign points you in the direction of her egg shop which is in reality a small enclosed side porch off her kitchen. When you walk in you'll find a refrigerated case containing the eggs.



Unfortunately there was someone getting into her car just as I was arriving and she had at least 6 dozen eggs in her possession! I was getting worried.

All the large eggs were gone but there were jumbo's, medium and cracked eggs available. The prices are as follows:
Jumbo - $2/dozen
Large - $1.75/dozen
Medium - $1.50/dozen
Cracked - $1.25/dozen

The jumbo eggs are huge. I purchase two dozen jumbo and 1 dozen medium. If a recipe calls for 2 large eggs I use one jumbo and one medium.

She leaves us notes:



We leave her notes on our purchase:



We put the money in the box. There's a separate small box that contains change in case you need it.

Here's the difference between the jumbo and the medium size.



Here are the results of our trip to the egg farm. Three dozen fresh eggs displayed in a fabric nest!



It's 10 degrees here this morning, without factoring in the wind chill. That's cold and perfect weather for baking buttermilk poundcake.


So.........tomorrow we'll do just that. We'll bake a buttermilk pound cake in a ridiculously expensive cake pan!