NAMESAKE

To walk out into the golden morning sun and pluck two pale blue eggs, still warm, from the nest box.  To crack them open into a pan of butter and cream and to push them around languidly until scrambled softly.  This was the escape that I conjured up so often as I sat high above the streets of the San Francisco Financial District, looking down from  my glossy lawyer’s office in the spring of 2010.

Two moves and three years later, I find myself more than half way across the country writing from an old farmhouse.  Pastures and forests, cardinals and wild turkeys,  eight-point bucks and coyotes are now my habitat.  From the kitchen window, I can see the little board-and-batten-sided coop perched at the top of the hill.  And almost anytime I want, I can walk out, open the lid of the nest boxes and hold a chalky, pale blue egg, still warm, in my hand.  It has yet to get old.

Though  blue eggs are my favorite, our hens lay a rainbow of muted colors: white, ivory, pale pink, blue, and green, aquamarine, tan, olive, terracotta, and classic brown.  Some are speckled.  And now that these gentle ladies are sharing more than two dozen eggs a day with us, we have plenty to share with others.

Softly Scrambled Eggs

Warm a generous knob of butter over low heat.  While the butter is foaming, use two interlocked forks to beat two eggs with a pinch of unrefined salt, and a scant glug of cream until all ingredients are reasonably well incorporated.  Pour the egg mixture slowly into the pool of butter.  Stir every so often until the eggs have started to solidify into small, smooth pieces and are still soft and glossy.  Top with a turn of the pepper mill and possibly a drizzle of olive oil.  Eat immediately topped with some torn tender herbs (my favorite is tarragon) and a fresh slice of rustic bread.