Eatwell Farms / Three Wise Hens Eggs

A note on choosing eggs: Wherever they appear in your meal, spare no pennies to get the freshest, tastiest eggs you can.  I want yolks the color of saffron that sit plump and high on the clear, thick, jellylike whites.  If the white is thin overall and watery at the edge, the egg may be too feeble to turn into a fluffy omelette or frittata.  Eggshell color is about hen variety and is no guarantee of great flavor, but the best eggs we get are from well-tended and well-fed hens that produce brown or blue eggs.  Try all the different colors and "brands" of eggs you can find, then choose the one that delivers flavor and freshness.  Even the most expensive egg makes a very economical meal.

Judy Rodgers, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook

One thing that I haven't missed during the Eat Local Challenge is eggs - we have plenty of options here in the Bay Area for local eggs: Marin Sun Farms, Petaluma Farms Eggs, Nash's Eggs, Ludwig Avenue Farm to name a few.  Now, there is a newcomer to the egg scene: Eatwell Farm, which is a familiar certified-organic vendor at several Bay Area farmers markets, is now selling eggs under the brand of "Three Wise Hens".  I initially heard that these eggs would only be available to CSA members, but they were available at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market on Saturday and the farmer, Nigel, expects them to be available on a regular basis from this point forward.

I didn't do a side-by-side comparison, but I found them to be just delicious.  We taste-tested them by poaching and setting atop a portabella mushroom (Solano Mushroom Farm), roasted tomato (New Zealand Pink Paste from Eatwell - my current favorite tomato), Capricious cheese and basil (Eatwell).  I modified this recipe by using less oil and the ingredients aforementioned. 

At $6/dozen, prices rival Marin Sun Farms as the highest in town.

Who's up for a Bay Area Egg Taste Test?

Photo by flourphoto.

Comments

[Nicky]

What an amazing shot! You're totally right about the quality of eggs – once you get used to free-range and organically-fed hens eggs, there is no way back, regardless of the higher price. I don’t get, why so many people tend to spent a fortune on big cars, houses and holidays, but contrarily buy the cheapest food available ;(

[Heather]

Wow, $6 a dozen? I guess we are lucky here. Farm fresh eggs are much cheaper than ones in the store. Most people with chickens have way more eggs than they can use. If they sell them they are usually $1 a dozen. Sometimes I even get them free.

[Barbara]

Nicky--no one is impressed by food, whereas big cars and houses are impressive to other humans. Besides, because of agricultural subsidies and the like, Americans -expect- and feel entitled to cheap food.

Jen--that poached egg--I am drooling right here! Wow, does that look fantastic!

Our eggs here average around 2.50 per dozen of free range, organic from the farmer's market. We are lucky that way.

And yes--I agree, once you taste a real egg, the grocery store ones suck, and you will never want to eat them again.

The same goes for tomatoes, peaches, apples, strawberries...the list goes on and on!

[molly]

Wow! That egg looks amazing. But my heart does skip a beat at that $6 price tag. We pay about $3 per dozen in Portland. However, with rising gas prices, those crappy supermarket eggs will probably soon be close to that!

Have you checked out the Organic Price Index, which catalogs prices for similar items from farmer's markets around the country?

http://newfarm.org/opx/

[Fatemeh]

How I wish I enjoyed eggs. But I have a runny-yolk phobia, and I can't STAND the smell of cooked/cooking egg.

Ironically, C adores eggs, but he married someone with the EXACT same egg-issues as his dad.

Still, we do buy free-range happies from the JLS market, where we spend $3 for medium or $3.25 for large eggs.

[Tana Butler]

I think an egg is one of the most amazing miracles in the world.

I get my chicken eggs from Everett Family Farm, or from one of the farmers markets here in Santa Cruz County,

I have been buying duck eggs from Ranch 101, a local farm in Watsonville--but just learned they aren't organic. They sell at the Wednesday Market in Santa Cruz, and the eggs are $4/half dozen. But they're duck eggs: they're gigantic. I blame Chef David Kinch at Manresa: that's where I had my first duck egg, on top of a bed of spinach with a white truffle sauce. I thought, "I could eat this every single morning." I don't, actually, but they are a splurge for Sunday breakfast, when I really try to spoil my hard-working husband.

It's hard to eat anything but a farm-fresh egg, once you've had them, and I have been longing to try Perfect Scrambled Eggs the way Wells describes them here:

http://www.burkeandwells.com/archive/000263.php

It takes half an hour, but so does risotto.

Thanks for writing about eggs, Jen.

[Jennifer]

I am definitely up for an egg taste test. In fact, I began a few weeks ago, after I found Triple "T" Ranch eggs from Santa Rosa at the Marin Civic Center Farmers Market. They're $3.25/dozen, but with all the hubbub about Marin Sun Farms, I'm going to have to try them next. Maybe even side by side with Triple T. Isn't the Zuni Cafe cookbook wonderful?!

[Sam]

Even at $6 a dozen - i just think of it as 50 cents an egg. Still a bargain for one of the most delicious natural foods on earth.

[Brett]

Count me in on a Bay Area egg taste test! My current favorites are Nash's at Alemany market and B&B farms when you can find them. The best I've had, though, are the ones that Lee of Tierra Vegetables used to on occasion bring to the Ferry Plaza market (I don't think she still does). Your pictures are lovely.

[john V Burke]

Pink Paste tomatoes, yum! Unimpressive on the outside, but that deep crimson interior and that overwhelming tomato taste... and Eatwell seems to be the only farm that grows them.

[john crandell]

long ago I read that when fertilized, the
cholesterol in a chicken egg yolk proceeds to quickly transform into lecithin.

can anyone provide any perspective on this?

John Crandell
landscape_vision@earthlink.net

[mary humphrey]

http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/pubs/meat_and_dairy_labels.html

[mary humphrey]

please read about the horrible inhumane way chickens are treated on animal farms.