Eat Local: Garden of Eve Eggs

I love eggs. In fact, they are among my favorite foods and I eat them several times a week for breakfast.

But first time a local egg really caught my attention as something special was at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, where a slow-cooked, soft boiled egg from right outside the restaurant topped a salad and was easily the star.

Since then, I’ve tried buying eggs from a couple farm stands out east, but they weren’t that much better than "sweat shop eggs" (Random Seinfeld reference).

But, last weekend we stopped at Garden of Eve organic farm on the North Fork and I picked up a dozen of their free-range, no-hormones, no-antibiotics eggs and they have been delicious the last few morning. I haven’t taken a good "in the skillet" picture yet, but the yolks are a deep gold-much richer and darker than your average grocery store eggs-and they stand up when in the pan rather than spreading out and flattening.

The whites are tender and actually have flavor…but the flavor is nothing compared to the thick, unctuous yolks, which are as flavorful as any egg I’ve tasted. These are the kinds of eggs that our grandparents and great grandparents probably ate, before factory farms started working to remove flavor from our foods.