So I’m playing tourist,
mooching off my galpal Corinne’s retired Redwood City, CA. dream life.
Boy, has she ever set herself up well in her hometown, recently
redeveloped into a vacation paradise ideal for a freeloader
like me. Not only is her late
parents’ house, in which she grew up, replete with a view of verdant
hillsides and well tended homes, and a
large garden full of a festival of fruits in rotating seasons of
ripeness, she’s got
the sensuous cuddle cat and the darling ditzy dog, and the
friendly, easy kind of community about which we all fantasize when
things start
to sloooow down.
Redwood City has Zydeco dancing for free with a great Cajun group in the renovated town square on Friday nights all summer, in a great contrast of stately buildings and Southern hoedown hick apparel. It features screenings and dance classes at the local community center every week all year long. People actually picnic in its parks. It’s got great walking areas, fine dining, funky shops with great one-of a-kind finds, a train station, and, holy shades of civilization, all the familiar franchises plus a Whole Foods with slightly different fare from local farms than the Los Angeles local branch.
They sell ostrich eggs.
They're organic. They’re gigantic. I thought they were pop art sculptures cast in stippled plaster at first. I stalked them in amazement for days, staring, then stroking, poking, lifting, inquiring, and remarking to everyone on their $29.99 price per three pound - oeuf! But, finally I succumbed. Having developed a fondness for duck eggs organically grown and served by another girlfriend of mine who married so well that my freeloading was four star on their organic farm. Those duck eggs, fresh from the duck's...shall we say "nest," were fantastic in frittatas, extra yellow in hue, well flavored with humanely plucked fresh herbs, onions and cholesterol. Adding another fowl’s giant egg to my eggventures – compared to quail eggs I felt like Gullliver, compared to this one I felt dwarfed – had to be worth the price.
Drooling with delight in
anticipation of the ostrich egg outing to come, and the kudos I might
get
from Corinne and company for conquering a new food frontier, I chopped
shallots
and organic parsley into a giant griddle frying fresh butter and
commenced
browning. The kitchen smelled
great. It was time to crack the egg
in a manner that kept the anticipated yolk, the largest single cell
known to
science, intact, whilst perhaps preserving the shell as an Easter
ornament for her spring display. It would not go
easily. A hammer was deployed. She held, I cracked, gently, then
harder, over a huge bowl. The
first hole was too small for anything to exit, and we had to strain out
splinters of rock hard shell. So I had
at it with the hammer harder and broke a plate-thick square inch out of
the hulk. The egg white began to drip out , the pale yellow yolk
losing its integrity in clumps as
it fell.
Using an old fashioned egg beater to mix the big bowlful, equivalent to two dozen chicken eggs, I dashed in some salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. Just like ostrich burgers, ostrich eggs are low fat fare, and a bit of fat helps it hold together. I poured nine eggs worth in, and began to fry, lifting the edges and running the liquid egg off the sides often. It took about fifteen minutes to brown it, halve it, flip it and serve it.
It tasted just like chicken eggs! But we had such fun in the consuming and picturing Big Bird letting it out of her body, and figuring out what to do with the rest of it, that the event outweighed the lack of novelty of the taste. Corinne made pancake batter with it the next day, tried to get new neighbors to come over and help us eat the rest. At these prices, you don't want to waste a drop. Yet, I splurged and bought another, as a house warming gift for friends, and yet a third as a present for a very pregnant young mom-to-be. A giant egg is inherently metaphoric, suggesting simplicities, perfections, beginnings, possibilities, art, a challenge for iron chefs, and a brunch for at least ten.