The Egg Salad Meltdown: Alternatively Titled, Urban-Farm Inspiration
“The eggs don’t taste like eggs and the mayonnaise doesn’t taste ANYTHING like ANYTHING! And don’t even get me started on the produce. HOW am I supposed to know what is in season? Did you know I bought a bunch of berries, thinking, ‘it’s summer!’ only to find out that they were flown all the way from South America and tasted precisely tasteless!?! This is both criminal and unacceptable! I am taking the children and we are getting on the next flight back to France!”
- that was me one afternoon this summer over the phone with my oh-so patient husband just one week after moving back to the states from three, idyllic years living in france.
Go ahead and repeat the exact same egg/mayo/berry rant (above) while replacing the word “egg” with “chicken/beef/rabbit/etc.” and the word “berries” with “plums/apples/grapes/etc.” and that was me. all. summer. long … you get the point: my husband is very patient, and I might be an eensy-teeny-tiny-bit bratty.
Throughout the summer, I had several – okay, maybe more than several – meltdowns after moving back to America. Some of them were warranted (different education standards, a depressed child, and living in an empty home for 3 months while all of our worldly possessions slooooowly drifted across the Atlantic Ocean,) but most of my tantrums actually revolved around the taste (or lack thereof) and quality of food.
At the time of my “Egg Salad Meltdown,” the children and I were staying on my parents’ farm in Humansville, Missouri (no, that is not a joke. It is actually named Humansville.) Thankfully, their kind and humanistic (haha, get it?) friends keep chickens (humanely, of course ... I'll stop now); one evening, they generously handed over two dozen free-range eggs.
I eagerly whipped up a delicious, properly tasting mayonnaise to accompany half a dozen flavorsome, wholesome, hard-boiled eggs.
Eureka! … the taste of real food again.
The biggest meltdown, er, um, I mean totally doable & reasonable problem to be easily solved? How was I going to repeat this same experience at our tiny, urban home in Hampton, VA? Well, that is a story for another time … but for now, buy a dozen cage-free eggs at your local supermarket (or, if you’re lucky enough, from your neighbor,) and try your hand at my recipe for French-style mayonnaise.