Chickens make eggs

I am getting back into the swing of real life after a cross-country road trip, in which I moved my dog and all my worldly possessions (mostly boxes of cookbooks and cooking appliances) to San Francisco. Thus, the lack of posting recently.

One of my most favorite stops on our road trip was to Steamboat Springs, where an old family friend of my mom’s lives on a horse ranch. I know, I almost stopped right there. This was one of the best stops for a number of reasons (the golden aspen trees, awesome horses, amazing family… I could go on), but perhaps my favorite was breakfast. I am not generally a breakfast person — more of a coffee and go kind of morning person. But if breakfast were this good all the time I’d have it for every meal.

It started in the morning when we went down to the chicken coop to collect eggs. I have always wanted to do this — I harbor dreams of pastoral nostalgia constantly, despite the fact that I grew up in a suburb of Boston with only squirrels as wildlife and little connection to the agricultural roots of my Carnation Instant Breakfast mornings.

Collecting eggs is MAGICAL. I am telling you, there’s nothing like seeing an egg actually come OUT of a chicken to realize the magic of it all. Chickens MAKE eggs!

Anyway, I could go on, but I’ll just go on to the next best thing, which was eating the homemade sausage patties that came from their summer feeder pig.

Homegrown sausage and eggs I collected that morning. There is no way to describe to you the deliciousness that I experienced that morning. I have tried to make sausage and eggs since I’ve been back, and I’m disappointed every time. Even with local farmers market sausage, even with organic cage free gold gilded eggs. It’s just not the same.

First outdoor square footage I get I’m converting to a chicken coop, this decided it.