For those who hear "egg" and don't think beyond "scrambled" or "boiled," Terry Golson's Farmstead Egg Guide & Cookbook will likely expand the association as far back as a chick hatchery, through building a coop, gathering fresh eggs and learning which hens lay blue-shelled and which lay brown.
Roughly one-fourth of this engaging primer is a how-to for those considering backyard chicken keeping, but Golson--who has kept hens for 20 years--offers easy-to-learn rules for buying the freshest eggs from a market or farm, too. The recipes, updated from her Farmstead Egg Cookbook (2006), range from the tastiest hard-boiled eggs to homemade mayonnaise and angel food cake.
Farmstead chickens provide eggs of exceptional flavor and freshness, but they're also fun to keep. Golson reveals chicken characteristics: the "broody" hen, the bully, the "ditzy" Polish hen, the placid Silkie. In this world, it is not nice to have a man around the coop; roosters are unnecessary for egg production and are useful only as watch-fowl, if predators lurk in the neighborhood. Calculating the cost of chicks, coop, feed, fencing and tools, Golson estimates that at the peak of a flock's productivity, it's reasonable to think of eggs costing $3.24 a dozen--but, she concludes, if you include the "pet factor," they're priceless. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco