ode to the egg...

One of my favourite conversations to have is the one where you discuss what food you would choose to eat if you could only eat that one food for the rest of your life. I like this conversation so much I have extended it into a whole range, including "which snack", "which meal", "which drink", "which protein, carb and fat combination" and so on. Sometimes I add in extra rules or limit choices if people's answers aren't to my liking or if I think they haven't given it an appropriate amount of thought - this is an important question friends, don't give your choice so quickly or willy nilly :)

The egg is usually my choice but I do glance at sweet potatoes (or yams as they're called in US) or regular potatoes at times, sometimes bread or cake seems super alluring. Mr C always chooses something suitably manly like steak or indulgent like cheese, but often he chooses the ever adaptable tater. When I say I'd choose an egg, he always says "ewwww, eggs? every day? ewwww".

But the egg is so good, I tell him. I love eggs in almost every way, scrambled, fried (sunny side up or over easy), boiled or my all time favourite, poached. And if I was only going to eat eggs I would finally learn how to poach the darn things properly.

It must be a free range egg to make it into my grocery basket - there seem to be some good eggeries around these here parts that have endorsements suffice to convince me the hens are happy when they lay these eggs. A few years ago I worked with a woman who had chickens at home, she sold the eggs for a mere $3/dozen and those must have been the happiest chickens ever - I stayed in the job much longer than I would have if it had not been for the steady supply of happiest-chicken-eggs. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but it was a consideration when I quit and I made sure it was after she'd brought in an extra dozen for me.

I am not someone who subscribes to using egg whites - I use the whole thing, cholesterol and all - the more dark yellow the yolk the better. Something I haven't quite come around to is the liter or half liter carton of ready-beaten-eggs that are popular in the US. I guess being able to pour out an "amount" of omelette or scrambled eggs as opposed to having a multiple of whole eggs dictate your egg-dish size makes some sense. But I love cracking open an egg and using it straight from the shell in whatever dish my belly is yearning for.

When I told Mr C I was writing this blog, he said "ewwww eggs?" but then he asked if I might offend some vegans out there with my love for the egg and my willingness to live solely off them for the rest of my days. I really hope this is not the case :)