by Margo True, Sunset food editor

Several days ago, chicken Ophelia wowed us all by laying our flock’s desperately awaited first egg (we’ll need many more for our end-of summer feast). Of course we were itching to eat it right away, but it was awfully small. It could not serve all of Team Chicken. So we waited a few more days—and Ophelia obliged. Eggs three had we!

Jim McCann, leader of Team Chicken, with eggs.

After five months, we were finally going to eat our own fresh eggs. How fresh? One of them was actually still warm. Hah!

We wanted to save the First Egg somehow, though, so we decided to blow out the contents the way you do for Easter eggs.  Here is how we did it, step by step, while managing to avoid hurting our eardrums. (Remember in grade school, when you’d have to put your lips to the egg and blow? Ouch.)

SUNSET’S KITCHEN-TESTED METHOD FOR PAINLESS EGG BLOWING

What you will need:

Washed and dried eggs
1 tack
1 hatpin or darning needle
1 ear syringe (we found ours near the pharmacy counter of our neighborhood Safeway)
1 bowl
Running water
1 folded paper towel

Washed and dried eggs.

Step 1:  Make first (small) hole. Poke a hole in the larger end of the egg, which is where the air pocket is, with a good sturdy tack. Make the hole twice as large as the tack’s tip (to allow more air in for easier blowing). Hold the egg in your hand so you don’t smash it to smithereens on the table what with all the pressure of the poking.

We discovered that Ophelia’s pretty little eggs have surprisingly thick shells, like unglazed porcelain. Firm drilling worked better than gentle scratching. “I used a lot of pressure,” said Sunset researcher Elizabeth Jardina, who turned out to be an excellent egg driller. “More pressure than I actually felt comfortable with.”

Drilling the first hole.

Step 2:  Scramble. Stick a darning needle or a hat pin in the hole and wiggle it around to scramble the contents. It’ll be hard to get the yolk out unless you do this.

Step 3: Make a second (larger) hole. Put a finger on the hole you’ve just made, flip the egg over, and make another, bigger hole in the small end.

The second hole (bigger than the first).

Step 4: Expel the egg. While holding your egg over a bowl, put the ear syringe against the first (smaller) hole and gently squeeze the syringe. In a moment, the white and then the yolk will stream out of the egg into the bowl.

Step 5: Rinse the shell. Fill the eggshell partway with water and shake it up to rinse thoroughly. Then use the syringe to blow the water out of the shell. You might have to repeat the rinsing and blowing a couple of times to get it completely clean.

Step 6: Dry the eggs. Let them drain on paper towels for a few days until they’re completely dry. Store in a cool dark place.

You may notice that we began with three eggs, and now have only two eggshells draining above. Yes, dear reader, we lost a shell. Too small an exit hole, too vigorous a syringing. We learned the hard way.

The yolks were a deep yellow-orange, almost the color of marigolds, and the whites very firm and bouncy. It was actually kind of hard to get them to combine with the yolks because they resisted the whisk.

To do justice to our first eggs, we chose a slow-scrambling method that makes the eggs so tender they’re practically like custard. It’s from a wonderful new cookbook called My Bombay Kitchen, written by our friend Niloufer Ichaporia King.

Here is her recipe (we adjusted the amounts to suit 3 little eggs):

Creamy Scrambled Eggs (Charvela Ida)

It's not hard to make scrambled eggs voluptuously creamy the French way, with lots of butter, but it's good to know that there's an alternative. You can make equally creamy eggs using a small amount of butter and a little slug of milk, about a tablespoonful per egg.

The high-heat, short-order cook's approach to scrambling eggs doesn't work here because the goal is creamy softness. You'll be surprised by how many lovers of firm scrambled eggs are converted by this approach. You need to use a saucepan for the best results. Nonstick pans are fine, although I've seen cooks in Bombay use thin aluminum pans with great success. Serves 4 generously.

8 large eggs
1/2 cup milk or half-and-half
1 to 2 tablespoons ghee [Indian clarified butter], clarified butter, or butter
4 pinches (about) salt

Whisk the eggs and milk lightly together in a small 1-quart saucepan. Add the ghee and about 4 pinches of salt. Over low heat, stir the eggs constantly with a wooden spatula, keeping contact with the bottom of the pan. In 5 minutes or so, the eggs will be creamy, soft, and ready to serve.

Best eaten with a spoon.

I scooped the eggs, so bright yellow they almost looked dyed, out onto a plate and we stood around and spooned them up. They were velvety and tasted rich and deep—like eggs, only squared. They were better, even, than the pasture-fed hen eggs I have bought for many dollars per dozen at farmers’ markets. I know, I know, I’m maybe a little bit biased. But really—they were the best eggs ever.

Team Chicken member Elizabeth Jardina

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

Finally, finally ... an egg!

There it is, right in the center. (The larger brown egg at the back is our decoy egg, a marble egg we put in there on Friday because we were worried that the chickies wouldn't know where to lay.) And the color is pretty accurate; that beautiful blue oval was laid by our own Ameraucana Ophelia (formerly: Kevin).

What a relief — egg fever had hit pretty hard here at Sunset headquarters.

Actually, egg fever had just hit me. But I was itching for eggs. Restless. Desperate. Every time I went to the coop, I ended our interaction with: "Lay me an egg." And I tried to make it sound stern, like it was an egg, or else, the frying pan. (Actually, our chickens are layers only, and they'll never face the frying pan.)

Browsing the forums at BackyardChickens.com just made me antsier. I discovered that our 21- and 22-week-old girls were just about the right age to start laying. Plus, their combs were getting bigger and pinker. The combs of egg layers are supposed to turn juicy red, like a raspberry. Sunset EggWatch 2008 was on.

Then, on Thursday, Ophelia did the "squat."

Here's the deal with the egg squat: It's the surest sign that your girls are getting ready to become, ahem, grown-lady chickens. I tried to pet Ophelia, and instead of dodging my hand, like she usually does, she crouched under my hand, threw her wings back, and stood very still, letting me stroke her back. This was highly unusual behavior; Ophelia typically flees from petting.

At that point, I started going to the coop twice a day.

I came to the office on Saturday, just to check. She was hanging out in the nesting box. Close ...! We were so close!

On Sunday, I got the call from Alan Phinney, our managing editor. An egg had landed! I rushed to the office, where I met my fellow member of Team Chicken, food editor Margo True, and we made googly, aww-ing noises over it for several minutes.

The bliss of our first egg!

But that was nothing compared to the excitement of today. I went to to the coop this morning at 11:30 to check on the ladies. Ophelia, our quietest girl, was making some raspy clucking announcements like she had something to say. I hung around and watched her trot into and out of the house. Alana, her fellow Ameraucana, followed her, jumping up onto the roost and clucking. Ophelia jumped up into the nesting box, then out onto the roost and then back into the box. Keeping an eye on me the whole time, she started rustling around in the box. I stayed very still, hoping she'd forget I was there.

She made a distinct "Cluck, cluck" noise and then she was quiet. I watched her head as she opened her beak and then closed it. Then she was very still. I tiptoed around to the back of the coop and opened the door to the nesting box:

Another egg! (Again, that big brown thing is our decoy egg.)

Then she hopped out, and I snatched the still-warm oval to bring inside and show off. Miraculous. I felt as plum-proud as if I'd laid the silly thing myself.

Ophelia, who seems to be our only girl who's laying so far, is producing petite blue eggs; the first was 1.5 ounces, the second was 1.6 ounces. Under USDA guidelines, that would qualify them as "small." (They do seem really small, especially if you're used to buying Extra Large or Jumbo eggs from the grocery store.) They'll get bigger as she matures.

Tomorrow: What will we do with the eggs? A tiny, tiny omelet? (Maybe.)

by Margo True, Sunset food editor

Every day, at least one person here at Sunset will ask, “When are those chickens going to lay eggs?” They’re about five months old now, and it could really happen any time. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched” suddenly isn’t a cliché. It’s actually kind of calming.

Which started me thinking about chicken lingo. There’s a lot of it. Not surprising when you consider that humans have been keeping chickens for 5000 years.

Just for starters, there’s:

Pecking Order And you thought it was an office term… Chickens actually do this; generally there’s a line of dominance in any given flock. At Sunset, Ruby is Top Hen. (Listen to her commanding croak.)

Roost Every day at dusk, a chicken will find a sheltered spot, preferably up high and snuggled next to another chicken, to sleep. A rooster is called a rooster because one of his main jobs is to herd chickens to their roost for the night.

Chicken Scratch What a doctor writes on your prescription. Just like the marks a chicken’s feet leave in dirt.

Chicken Said by someone who does not have your best interests at heart, as in “Don’t be such a chicken—that snake won’t bite.” Also refers to the ridiculous game, started in the 1950s, in which two teenage boys drive at each other head-on or toward an obstacle, the first one to swerve being the chicken. Smart is what I call it.

Running Around Like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off The ultimate in disorganization. Drawn, unfortunately, from a lot of vivid farm scenes. That’s why cones are used to contain chickens in their final moments.

Hen-Pecked Once said about a wife who verbally picked on her husband. Now, of course, nagging is equal opportunity.

Fly the Coop Vanish suddenly. An older meaning, from the late 18th century: To break out of prison.

Chicken Feed (also chicken change) Absurdly small amount of money. As in, “My starting salary as an actress was chicken feed.”

Chicken Run Pen attached to a chicken coop, where poultry wander during the day. It’s been used to describe the abandonment of marginal seats by British members of Parliament for seats they were surer to win. It was also a derisive reference in the 1970s to the flight of whites from Rhodesia as it was becoming independent Zimbabwe. 

Chicken Ranch The original Chicken Ranch operated in Gilbert, Texas, as a brothel in the mid 1900s. You can guess the meaning of “chicken” in this context. Another explanation: Local farmers handed over chickens as payment for services rendered.

Brood To moodily contemplate, as in “Don’t brood over that silly boy, my dear. He wasn’t worth it.” Derived from “broody,” the inwardly focused (and pretty much immobile) state of a chicken when she’s sitting on her eggs.

Lay an Egg Not what we want for any Sunset project—except the chickens. What a strange term for failure, when you think about it.

Egghead As in, “What happened to Mary? She used to date eggheads and wear sweater sets—now she’s into surfers and raw food.” If you yourself are an egghead, you might want to check out The Chicken Book, a tome plump with fascinating facts and lore.

Egg Someone On Goad a person into doing something difficult and possibly not all that good for them. Comes from the behavior of a laying chicken’s coopmates, who surround her and cluck encouragingly when she’s about to lay.

Eggbeater 1930s term for a helicopter.

Cockpit The English theater “pit”, where orchestras now play, was originally used for cockfights (hugely popular in 18th-century London).

And… because it’s too tempting not to include…

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Punchlines, please! We’d love to see your favorites. (And add to this list, if you like. Just post a comment below.)

By Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

Every time I visit the chickens, this is what I hear:

Our friend Ruby, who has grown into quite a lovely lady, makes this decidedly unladylike noise at the sight of people. Like a creaky door. Sometimes it means "Give me some of whatever you're carrying," and other times it means "Don't feed Charlotte that delicious grass! I want it," but it can also be a greeting for any human who dares enter the coop.

Ruby's body looks almost like it's covered in netting. Her feathers are very matte and very smooth. (Soft too, when she lets you give her a quick pet.)

Which brings us to our other Rhode Island Red, Carmelita, the lady who was looking like a dude to us. Here's an updated picture of the two of them:

Carmelita (on the left) certainly has a lot of greenish feathers on her body. Now they're 22 weeks old. I think that if she was going to secretly be a rooster, she would have said something by now.

Since we last blogged, the girls have grown up in a few other ways too. Their vocalizations have changed. Rather than a weird combination of creaking and cheeping, they sound like a happy, clucking clutch of hens.

Listen here:

A happy clucking bunch — with the occasional creaky door noise, which is always Ruby. Fellow chicken-wrangler MacKenzie and I were worried for a while that the creaky-door voice was going to morph into a cock-a-doodle-doo, but Ruby's so decidedly hen-like, we decided our fears were baseless.

Of course, MacKenzie is no slouch either. Listen to her traditional chicken call here:

And they're developing combs and wattles that are bigger and pinker every day:

This is either Charlotte or Honey. I can never tell the difference.

Alana, one of our famously hawk-like Ameraucanas has developed some — er, facial feathers. Hilarious, awkward facial feathers. For your viewing amusement, I offer you a comparison:

So, does our Alana look like president Martin Van Buren or what?

Even with all this maturity, still no eggs. Yes, I know it's the dead of winter, but I'm dreaming of fresh eggs. Scrambled with the baby arugula that's just popping up out of the damp ground., Yes, I know we planted that for the chickens, but still, it would be scrumptious with their (potential, future) eggs.

I leave you with a photo of a funny butternut squash from the garden. Talk about an awkward growth spurt:

By Amy Machnak, Sunset food writer

I have two separate batches of olives that I am trying to cure using different methods.

The first I started around Halloween, with olives from Pietra Santa Winery in a salt cure. The other olives are ones that Team Olive brought back from our harvest at Valencia Creek Farms in November. Those are in a brine solution (water and salt).

Both sets of olives are really unattractive at this point (revolting would be a more accurate word) and I am starting to worry that I have botched both techniques.

The salt-cured olives, which I was told would take 4 to 6 months to complete, are shriveled, dry, and taste of old wood. I don’t see how keeping them in salt a few more months is going to make any difference. I have an email in to my local “expert” (read: my Italian father-in-law) to see what I have done wrong and how to repair the damage if possible.

  The real disappointment are the olives in the brine solution. They started out bright green, plump, firm, and meaty. After only a few days, some started to change color and become brown and squishy. Now the brine solution has developed a thick film on the top, a color best described as baby-shower pink, and spots of gray fluffy mold spores. I have been told that this is normal (you have got to be kidding, right?) and that this in fact “adds to the flavor of the olives.”

If I am not willing to eat it myself, I don’t have the heart to ask anyone else to sample my science project. I can only hope at this point that what was naturally perfect in the beginning and has turned ugly over time will eventually be reincarnated as something deliciously edible. Maybe.

Just to recap, the Brew Crew made beer and it was good. But many enthusiasts could say we "cheated," using extract instead of starting with the hops and grains in their raw state.

Our growing update follows...

By Rick LaFrentz, Sunset head gardener and beerless leader

A couple of days before one of our worst winter storms, I planted the soft white winter wheat seeds. Lord knows I didn’t have to water it in.

The barley is up and growing. Hopefully we can keep the birds from eating the toils of our labor.

Now we sit back and wait for the plants to grow and develop seed heads, or grain.

We need these grains for their sugar, which is necessary for the fermentation process. Most grains are initially vehicles of stored starch, but we want them to move on to the next step in their development, germination, when they convert to a food source, sugar.

While the wheat we’re using does this conversion on its own, we’ll have to go through the malting process with our barley crop. We’ll store the seed heads in constant humidity until the grain thinks it’s time to germinate, to shift from starch to sugar. We’ll arrest the conversion at that point, probably by putting them in an oven. (If we wanted to create a beer with a darker, roasty flavor we’d really heat up the grains.)

For the all amateur grain beer makers there are beer catalogs and brew stores that carry these grains already malted. In fact, I know of only one brewery that malts its own grains and that’s Coors. The rest of the breweries, both large and small, buy their grains already malted.

So obviously we have our work cut out for us.