What better way to start a blog than with a piece about the humble egg. The primordial symbol of new beginnings.

The ones I am enjoying at the moment I discovered at my local greengrocer in Hampstead. They swiftly achieved cult status in our household… this is because they are basically freaks of nature, albeit natural and very delish ones: They are double yolkers!  “How do they manage to get those?” I hear you ask. Well I DID ask and apparently a fresh and plucky young rooster is introduced to the flock at regular intervals, which, much as Beatles fans might have thrown their underwear on stage in paroxysms of lust, causes the hens to go all libidinous and fertile and provokes intensified ovulation resulting in double egg sacks in their gorgeous eggs.  ==>  I had to revise this last piece of info as I asked my farmer of H G Witt and Son, at the Parliament Hill Farmer’s Market and apparently there is a much less romantic answer.  Around 5-7% of conceptions are twins, these result in larger eggs and they are visible and selectable simply by virtue of their size.   This farmer does the most wonderful raw milk, the best actually (see here). Anyway… Each egg is quite frankly, HUGE, which makes a real feast of eggs and soldiers in our house.  They are from Haresfield Farm and are not their regular extra large organic free range eggs.  They have a special red XL label.  Anyway, all this to say that we have a bit of an eggs-n-soldiers obsession – somewhat fuelled by this new egg-eating experience: instead of an unsatisfying couple of stabs at a little egg swiftly resulting in a pile of dry crusts and no more interior unctiousness, these eggs are quite literally a wholesome and creamily delicious meal in themselves.

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