Many recipes for spaghetti sauce and savory soups direct us to chop and saute’ several cloves of garlic at the outset. Go ahead as directed, but leave  a couple of teaspoons of uncooked garlic on your cutting board. Chop it fine — tiny. Mince it, in other words. Two minutes before serving your dish, add the fresh garlic to the pot, stir, let it heat through, and serve. Your dish now gets two layers of garlic flavor. With minimal cooking of the small pieces added near the end, the second wave of garlic adds bright flavor that is not harsh.

This recipe makes one generous serving or two small ones. It takes about 12 minutes to prepare and cook. All ingredients came from Lexington Farmers Market and Good Foods Market. See Sources.

Ingredients:

1 head Blue Moon garlic, any variety
1 - 2 Tablespoons good olive oil
2 large fresh eggs
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon good mustard
1/4 cup grated tangy hard cheese (Swiss, Gruyere, Parmesan, Asiago, or Aged Cheddar)
Freshly grated black pepper and salt to taste

Method:

1. Peel and chop the garlic in small to medium pieces.
2. Set a small skillet over low heat. After a minute, add the olive oil. When it shimmers and you can smell it, add the chopped garlic. Saute the garlic gently, stirring occasionally. The goal is for it to soften and become slightly translucent, and slooooowly begin to carmelize just on the edges of the slices.
3. While the garlic cooks, get the eggs ready. Break two fresh eggs into a small bowl. Add the milk, mustard, grated cheese, black pepper, and salt (if you like particularly salty tastes.) Stir the egg mixture together with a fork or whisk until it is well mixed (especially the mustard, which tends to clump).
4. When the garlic has started to carmelize (turn golden) around the edges, add the egg mixture to the saute pan.
5. Stir slowly and steadily until the eggs are as done as you like them. They are delicious when they have just lost their shine but are still soft and creamy.
6. Remove the eggs immediately to a plate or serving bowl. Enjoy!

Note: These eggs are luscious with a side of fresh fruit.
Another note: Blue Moon’s paprika, either sweet, hot, or both, makes a FANTASTIC addition to this dish.

Sources for Ingredients: (but remember to experiment with using what you have on hand!)

Garlic: Blue Moon Farm (This dish is spectacular when made with the soft-shell garlic Blue Moon sells in June each year.)

Eggs: Elmwood Stock Farm

Milk: Organic Valley Whole Milk from Good Foods

Mustard: Sherry Mustard from Sunflower Sundries, sold by Elmwood Stock Farm at the Lexington Farmers Market, and also sold at Good Foods.

Cheese: Kenny’s (Kentucky) Country Asiago, Aged Cheddar or Swiss, or Argentine Parmesan. Good Foods sells all these, and Blue Moon Garlic sells Kenny’s cheeses during the Lexington Farmers Market season.

Salt: Baleine Sea Salt, Grey sea salt (sold in bulk) or kosher salt from Good Foods

Pepper: Tellicherry peppercorns, sold in bulk at Good Foods

The Beauties of a Fruit Dish with Savory Eggs

The sweet-tart acidity of fruits, fresh or lighly stewed or browned in butter, make these eggs even more delicious. Even when the Farmers Market is not in session, even in winter, I look in my freezer and find good things: A mix of frozen organic blueberries from the previous Lexington Farmers Market season or from my brother’s bushes, alone or mixed with organic black cherries from Good Foods, heated until warm and juicy.

Slices of crisp Reed Valley Orchard apples (Honey Crisp, Stayman Winesap, Mutsu, or Gold Rush work perfectly) or fresh ripe are perfect with these eggs in the fall.

Soft garlic is available during strawberry season. Strawberries or black raspberries with a dash of organic maple sugar partner well with these savory eggs.

The strain of E. coli that has recently killed some people is a Feedlot Frankenstein, according to Michael Pollan’s important article in the New York Time magazine on Sunday, October 15, 2006:

The lethal strain of E. coli known as 0157:H7, responsible for this latest outbreak of food poisoning, was unknown before 1982; it is believed to have evolved in the gut of feedlot cattle. These are animals that stand around in their manure all day long, eating a diet of grain that happens to turn a cow’s rumen into an ideal habitat for E. coli 0157:H7. (The bug can’t survive long in cattle living on grass.)

Instead of generating a slew of new regulations, which put small scale growers at a painful disadvantage and suck more farms into the agri-giant vortex, Pollan advocates something simple: Know your growers. Small scale growers may produce food that has some risks, but not much. Pollan’s article is an elegant argument for buying and eating local food, for a decentralized food system.

Great people collaborated to produce a stunning event on Saturday, October 14, 2006. Slow Food Bluegrass and the UK College of Agriculture’s horticulture and sustainable ag produced a tour and dinner called Chefs Afield.

The evening felt momentous, as if we were present at a turning point. I imagined I could feel Kentucky changing in ways that will be good for farmers, land, health, and, of course, pleasure, for all time to come. No going back.

Since my main man is running for office, I put some pics up on his website. The orange puffs floating in oil — Holly Hill Inn chef Ouita Michel’s Pumpkin Fritters — won his “best in show” award.