Afterwards, I bought eggs from a receptionist at another salon. (Why is it always the beauty shops?) Her husband had a county license to sell eggs. Of course that wasn't good enough (they were trying to save money on licensure), her working under his license; when I found out, I stopped buying my eggs from them.
A Facebook friend ran a bakery, legally, out of her home kitchen, lived near my neighborhood, had a food license and beautiful multi-colored eggs. The tastiest I have ever eaten. I bought eggs from her for at least a year, but she didn't always have an excess. I often found her traveling, and remarried, and widowed, and using all the eggs in her baked goods. One day, she unfriended me on Facebook. Probably justified.
Soon afterwards, a food co-op opened (for less than a year) in my neighborhood. A lot of the eggs were pasteurized. I'm not sure what that told me but it told me something about mistrusting the safeness of one's yard eggs. I shied away. The store was mostly a deli and a health-nut emporium. The people they hired could never answer a single question I asked about anything pertaining to food.
I often buy eggs from Publix, but so few organic eggs are sold, due to the cost involved, that they are always near expiration date and never as tasty as local eggs. I tried Fresh Market and, since they stock less merchandise, the eggs are fresher and tastier, costlier, and pictured here with my blueberry grits in a delicious Basel scramble. (Whole Foods and Trader Joes always have clogged parking lots, and I won't drive that far to haggle for a way-too-skimpy-for-a-Tahoe parking spot in order to buy a dozen eggs.)
So after this last Saturday brunch (above) I made my way to the Farmers' Market at Market Square. And that was a slap in the face (wake up, wake up) that has had me thinking ever since.
Who has green money?
I did, but I left it on the dresser. Because of this, I only had two stands in which to shop using my bankcard. The lone organic grower at Market Square was one of them. I used to buy a share every season. They didn't sell eggs then, or have a half-share, and there was an expiration date involved. On top of all that, they packed up anything they had and left it in your locker (very near my house) on the farm. One person can only eat so much arugula.
A girl who had no idea what a half-share is and had no interest in anything but packing up early and going home had laid the organic eggs out of the cooler at 8 AM and onto the hot table where I found the last dozen sitting in the 85 degree temperature at 10 o'clock. They were sweating. There were two full dozen eggs in cartons sweating behind them. Those were the broken and/or rejected eggs.
I picked up the eggs. I sat the eggs back down. I never, ever question my intuition.
At the other booth, the eggs were sold out. The proprietor told me that I should show up right at 8 o'clock on Saturdays – as the eggs would not last thirty minutes. So now you know. I have to decide if I forfeit my Saturday brunch. (I had refused to miss my meal and fresh coffee for a docent tour of St. Peters on this same morning.) How badly do I want to go to the market for eggs and tomatoes-only?
The eggs and tomatoes-only problem is the other half of this story. I'll post tomorrow about how the grocers are beating out the local farmers because the quality of the merchandise is better, the produce is less expensive, and the food is protected by the building from the Florida heat.
Also (and this is a big one) in today's world where you may buy one squash or squash for a hundred diners in almost every grocery store, I got a rap on the hand for ignoring the pre-filled baskets of tomatoes in various stages of ripeness (great in most cases but not for sauces) and rummaging through the tomato boxes for the nearly overripe ones to use at once! I guess the pasta will have to wait. Or become adorned with pesto or clams.
