A Big Ol' Goose Egg

The other day, my student Matthew asked me if I like eggs.  When I replied that I did, he told me he'd bring me some goose eggs since his neighbor had a goose and would give him more eggs than Matthew knew what to do with.  (Some people have all the luck!)  The next day he gave me four goose eggs.  I had never seen one before; pickled duck eggs and canned quail eggs are about as exotic an egg as I've ever had.  When I took it out of the bag, I was amazed by its size.

It's funny how little it takes to throw our sense of perspective out of whack.  One goose egg is about the equivalent of 2-3 chicken eggs and though I eat chicken eggs all the time, I didn't know quite what to do with these guys so I asked around and the most common answer was to scramble them, so that's what I did.  I added a little milk, some salt and pepper, and scrambled them up, then put them in tortillas with some sauteed mushrooms and greens.  The flavor was mild and tasty and surprisingly, not so different than chicken eggs.  I did do a little more sleuthing about on the Internet to see what other things people did with goose eggs and came across this British site called Clarence Court that sold goose, duck, turkey, rhea, and ostrich eggs to name just a few.  They also have a really great recipe index with such interesting sounding dishes such as "Deep fried turkey egg with Asian herbs" or "A bloody good egg nog."  Maybe next time around.

To end, I thought I'd share another Billy Collins poem, this time about perspective and how one thing can change our whole point of view:

Bonsai

All it takes is one to throw a room
completely out of whack.

Over by the window
it looks hundred of yards away.

a lone stark gesture of wood
on the distant cliff of a table.

Up close, it draws you in,
cuts everything down to its size.

Look at it from the doorway,
and the world dilates and bloats.

The button lying next to it
is now a pearl wheel,

the book of matches is a raft,
and the coffee cup a cistern

to catch the same rain
that moistens its small plot of dark, mossy earth.

For it even carries its own weather,
leaning away from a fierce wind

that somehow blows
through the calm tropics of this room.

The way it bends inland at the elbow
makes me want to inch my way

to the very top of its spiky greenery,
hold onto for dear life

and watch the sea storm rage,
hoping for a tiny whale to appear.

I want to see her plunging forward
through the troughs,

tunneling under the foam and spindrift
on her annual, thousand-mile journey.

--Billy Collins, Picnic, Lightning