Squawkers
Given my frequent vegan anti-defamation league posting here, and citations to Vegan Porn , it would be understandable to have concluded that I’m a vegan. But I’m not. At the beginning of last year, I resumed eating eggs, but only from organically-fed free-range hens who even have intact beaks, that I get at the Berkeley Farmer’s Market . So I’m functionally vegan outside the house. Except for honey, which I don’t go out of my way to eat, but don’t strictly avoid either. So “vegan” comes a lot closer to describing my diet than anything else I could say nearly so quickly.
The farm from which I get my eggs has the usual range of sizes — medium, large, extra-large, jumbo — and then they have… squawkers.
Squawkers are the eggs so large they don’t have cartons to accommodate them, named for the sound effect as a hen passes one. They sell them more cheaply than jumbo eggs, due to the pain in the ass factor of spacing them out six to a dozen-egg carton, that won’t close such that you need rubber bands to hold it close to shut (which you the customer get to do yourself.)
I’m amused by the ridiculously oversized eggs. And cheap. So I get them whenever they have them.
On Saturday, I was getting some at the same time some nice little old lady was. “Why are they so big?” she was asking the person at the table. “These are from the hens that have been irradiated,” I said, helpfully.
The person at the table laughed, but the little old lady was greatly distressed that I was invoking a dirty word relative to food she was buying.
How many intact beaks do you get at the Farmer's Market? And what do you do with them once you have them?
Posted by Mris on April 1 2003 10:35
Comma added, smartass.
Posted by Zed on April 1 2003 11:49
This is a market distinct from the old Berkeley Bowlarama, am I right? Purity of essence (POE) can be mighty important to the loons in the People's Republic of Berserkeley. Me, I survived there on pizza for nearly a decade.
Posted by iggy on April 1 2003 21:59
Gotta love those college towns, where the diet, exercise, sexual, and other lifestyle practices gravitate towards either the ludicrously healthy or dangerously unhealthy.
And in California, the extremes go farther in both directions.
Posted by Jimcat on April 2 2003 05:52
Yeah, this is the Farmers Market with local farmers selling their produce and such, mostly organic. There's one downtown every Saturday (and another Tuesday evenings, elsewhere in town.)
The Berkeley Bowl is no longer in the old bowling alley -- it moved to a much bigger space. It's still perpetually packed, though.
"Purity of essence (POE) can be mighty important to the loons in the People's Republic of Berserkeley"
I resemble that remark...
Posted by Zed on April 2 2003 22:05