My neighbors! I'm sorry for leaving you without my endless ramblings for so long, but life (including the flu) sometimes catches you off guard. Let's get right to it!
"Do you know where your food comes from?"
These days, how often do we hear this question? And do we truly know the answer? How many times do we blindly pick up a package of steaks or a head of lettuce with no concern over how it made it from farm to store? I never thought much about it until I started living with ducks. Our layers are pretty consistent, so we have a steady supply of eggs. When we run out and I have to buy chicken eggs, I kind of panic. What were these chickens eating? Were they healthy? Well kept? Did they have
bumblefoot? (We had a case of bumblefootwith one of our ducks. It's apparently common in poultry, and probably pretty common in commercial poultry farms. I'll let you read up on it yourself.) I'm amazed, after buying eggs, how watery and weak tasting they are. I can easily replace "2 eggs" in a recipe with just a single duck egg. (Look back to my
Cheese-Stuffed Meatballs for an example.) I see the ducks who lay these eggs every day. We feed them and care for them. I know where these eggs come from. And they're freaking delicious. (Don't worry. We'll have some egg recipes in the near future!)
