Foodies: 2 of 4 (Community)

My son has turned into an egg snob.

Trust me, this throws a new and ugly wrinkle into life here at the 47 for two reasons:

1) our primary egg source has informed me that chickens lay fewer eggs in the winter, meaning that it can take a while for her to bring us a dozen eggs, and

2) our secondary source, one of the local farmer's market denizens who provides us with eggs and jams in flavors ranging from plum conserve to winterberry to lemon-jalapeno (and she makes pickles, too), has traditionally closed down in the winter.

Let me back up and say that I never intended for him to become an egg snob. He's 8, loves Pop Tarts and would rather go hungry than eat broccoli unless it is smothered in this nastiness called "Wholly Queso: the Official Queso of the Yankees." Even then it is roundly denounced.

A few weeks back, I had to all but bribe and then frog-march him to the market. I've described it before, so I won't revisit that right now. What matters is that the boy who had to be coerced into going didn't want to leave. He wanted to know about the different vegetables, and how they made the maple syrup, and if he could talk to all of the dogs, and why the woman was selling papyrus plants and if we could buy a fresh chili ristra to replace the dried one I currently have and was I absolutely certain we have enough garlic to get through the winter and oh yeah, how the Amish people baked the bread and cookies they were selling, since they don't have electricity.

The best part, of course, is that I didn't have to answer most of those questions. The answers, the source of the answers, marks the difference between going to the grocery store and the farmer's market; between simply living somewhere and becoming part of a community. Farmer's market denizens love to talk about their products, and will patiently explain how the tree sap gets cooked down, or the garlic is braided, or why Aloe is also called "Burn Plant." The dogs don't say quite as much, but their steady presences lend a weigh to the proceedings.


While we were there I picked up a dozen eggs, not thinking beyond "we need eggs. Oh look, here are some eggs."

The next morning, I made them for breakfast, my son watching dubiously as I broke them into a bowl. He was puzzled by the variety of colors, the misshapenness, the lack of size uniformity in the pack. They weren't the eggs he has grown up with, and in being different from both the norm and from one another, were instantly suspect.

The yolks, unsurprisingly for those who are familiar with small-farmed eggs, were a brilliant, almost glowing orangey-gold and bigger than the typical factory-farmed egg yolk. I scrambled yolk and white together, toasted the Amish bread and we sat down to eat.

The kiddo stared at them for a long time, still unsure. Until finally, slowly, he tried the tiniest of bites and declared them the best ever. Because let's face it, they're different. And now, he refuses to eat eggs from the grocery store because they're not as good. And really? I can't blame him for that.

Our regular market is now closed until next June. Harvest season is largely over except for the last few cabbages, and the first flurries have come and gone. I've been lamenting what we are going to do do for eggs and meat this winter, but I shouldn't have worried.

We're a community here. A rag-tag one, to be sure, but a community nonetheless and I should've remembered this. Our egg-and-jam lady, and the meat people, and our maple syrup source have, along with others, joined together to hold a wintermarket twice monthly in front of a new coffee shop here in town. Sure, they do this because this is commerce. But they also do it because it they are a community of people who, recognizing that none can do this alone, came together because that's how we get things done around here.

Since I started writing this, Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" has happened. What was said there reminded me of what is true here--"we work together every damn day" to make things happen, to get things done. Wintermarket, for me, is a simple, beautiful reminder of this--we can't do it alone; we have to do it together. And as I mentioned when I started this series, nothing brings us together the way food does. It defines our communities, often, makes us social and brings us together if only for a minute. Those minutes are precious, if brief. They are the ones that remind us of what we are: a community.

And now, I need to go find some eggs for my little locavore's breakfast.