Eggs Basted in Butter

Excerpt from Ari’s Top 5 enews

Breakfast to make at home in honor of Nikki Giovanni

A top-down photo of a carton of brown eggs.

In a sense, eggs summed up many of the themes of Nikki Giovanni’s life. Her impatience with poor quality and willingness to speak her mind showed up in her statement, “There’s nothing worse than badly scrambled eggs!” And on the other end of the life continuum, she positioned those same eggs as the centerpiece of a love poem, “I Wrote a Good Omelet.”

One of Giovanni’s self-professed preferred breakfasts was a couple of eggs from one of her farmer neighbors cooked in a lot of good butter. The dish is easy to do, and with the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter we have on hand, beautifully delicious. As Giovanni said, “There is no such thing as too much butter.” Being a lifelong devotee of traditional food and great ingredients, she loved a good farm egg—in the spirit of her regular appreciation of the beauty of the world, she would sing the praises of feeding chicken marigolds to enrich the color and flavor of the yolks.

To prepare the eggs, start by getting a skillet moderately hot. Add about a tablespoonful of the Vermont butter per egg. When the butter is hot, bubbling a bit around the edges, crack in a couple of eggs. They should start to sizzle a small bit near the edges and the whites will start to cook up rather quickly. When the whites are set, tip the frying pan so the butter pools on one edge, and then with a soup spoon, start to spoon hot butter over the top of the yolk. Repeat until the egg is cooked to your liking. If you prefer them over easy, it won’t take long.

Slide the eggs onto a warm plate, sprinkle with fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper (the Elephant Valley pepper would be particularly good) and serve some toasted Bakehouse bread on the side—spread, of course, with more butter! If you’re up for a few extra minutes of cooking, make the toast in the hot butter in the frying pan rather than the toaster! Terrific way to start your day! Better still, sit down for a few minutes after you’re done and start a poem about it all. Let me know how it goes!

> SHOP BETTER BUTTER TO BASTE YOUR EGGS!