Eggs -->

Last week I finally turned off the main drag out of town onto a rambling gravel driveway I've passed dozens of times. A sign with the word Eggs scrawled across it in hand writing and an arrow pointing up the lane was nailed to a fencepost. Driving onto someone's property and knocking on their front door for food is a completely foreign concept to me, and to most of western society, so although I had always wanted to stop in, I hadn't yet. I actually drove past it at first, like every other time, then finally shook my head, laughed at myself, and pulled a U-turn. The farmstead was quaint and lovely and the latin woman who answered the door was bright and friendly. She sold me a dozen eggs for five dollars and asked that I bring the carton back if I return for more; expensive by supermarket standards but well worth it for fresh eggs from happy, grass-fed chickens (and still cheaper than big-brand organic eggs).

The eggs were delicious and we devoured them quite quickly. These last three I had for breakfast this morning, as a veggie omelette with backyard basil and nine year-old cheddar. Mmm! The yolks were incredibly vibrant, almost orange, and much firmer than factory farm eggs. They were all different shapes, colours and sizes, as you can see. The runt of the litter had a double yolk, which I found funny.

I love how wildly un-uniform nature is. It makes me look at a carton of supermarket eggs and wonder warily, how exactly did they get all these eggs to look so remarkably identical?

Give me speckles, double yolks and signs on fenceposts instead, please.