Eggs and Coffee

As I’ve previously mentioned, my husband and I moved our family to England several years ago for a short stay. His job assigned him to a project in northern England and provided a furnished home for us for about 3 months. While it was very short, it afforded my children an opportunity to live in a different country and culture without having the handicap of a foreign language (or so we thought. Turns out, English is NOT what we speak. We speak American, which is absolutely not what “they” speak.) We learned many, many things while there, but a couple of the things that changed my life forever are detailed below.

First off, they don’t perk or drip their coffee. They refer to both coffee and tea as “a brew”, and both are prepared in relatively the same way - good old boiling water. Every kitchen, and even every hotel room, is equipped with an electric kettle, but not the kind I grew up around. These are cordless kettles. You plug a base into an outlet, remove the insulated kettle, fill it with cool water, place it on the base, and turn it on, usually with an easy flip of a switch. The base connects to electrodes inside the kettle, or like heating coils, that then heat up very quickly, boiling the water around them. But THIS is the really genius thing. They don’t whistle annoyingly. When the water is boiled, it shuts off the switch and the coils begin to cool down. The water, however, being in an insulated kettle, maintains its temperature for quite some time. And if you let it go too long, you can always flip the button again. It honestly takes 2-3 minutes to have a kettle of boiling water. No fear of the water boiling away and burning up your kettle. No whistles to make you run like a lunatic to turn it off just to maintain your sanity. It’s genius! (Did I already say that? It bears saying again - simply genius!) Upon our return from England, I got on Amazon and found an American version of the English kettle and ordered it. I wouldn’t be without one now. The second part of this, though, took a little longer to perfect. The English use instant coffee. But theirs is actually really good; no bitter taste, no longing for a good cup of dripped coffee.  It’s difficult to get here. I began buying instant coffees. I’d try one out, and disgustedly put the jar to the side. This went on for months, but I kept it up. After all, if the English have perfected instant coffee, then we, the greatest country in the world, ought to have SOMETHING comparable. Took me awhile, but I finally found it. And it’s pricey, but still cheaper than buying English coffee from an import dealer. I buy Taster’s Choice. They even carry it at Costco in big jars. They have regular and decaf and, occasionally, if I run out and have to buy from a grocery store, I get French Roast or some other yummy different option. I can make a single cup of coffee, no waste, and make it as weak or strong as I want, all with my magic kettle. I only use my drip coffee maker now on Sunday mornings, when everyone is up and drinking coffee at the same time, or my daughter and I want to sit and visit while drinking coffee in the morning. The even better news - it’s freeze-dried, so it will last for nearly all time! This is a GREAT product to store up. The crystals can be used to flavor candy, brownies, or other baked goods without altering the fluid volume or messing up your measurements. And there’s absolutely NO waste. I’ll forever be thankful for my England experience that taught me to drink instant (not nasty, American instant but rich, flavorful, smooth instant) coffee.

Long paragraphs today! Second important lesson I learned.  Lean in now, listen carefully. Eggs do not need to be refrigerated! I’ll repeat. Eggs do not require refrigeration. Who knew? Apparently, the English. Probably lots of other European countries, also. You could find them in the grocery store on an end cap or  buy them from the butcher. One day, while shopping at the butcher with a friend, I asked the woman manning the counter why eggs aren’t refrigerated. Her answer? A question. If they are refrigerated, how can you tell if they are fresh? Not speaking “English”, I asked how you could determine freshness in non-refrigerated eggs. “You feel them,” she said. “If they’re warm, they just came from under the hen.” Okay. Her definition and the definition of millions of Americans as to what fresh means is vastly different. I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly fresh egg, by her standards. But if they leave eggs on end caps at the grocery store and don’t EVER refrigerate them, then I ought to be able to leave them out on the counter instead of taking up valuable fridge real estate. For years now, I’ve been leaving my eggs on the counter. Now, truthfully, they won’t last forever, but they WILL last far longer than I ever anticipated. I always crack my egg into a bowl before use. If the yolk sticks to the inside of the shell, throw it out. If it has any odor, throw it out. If it just doesn’t look right, throw it out. But by far, the majority of your eggs will do absolutely fine on the counter.

Several years go, when I had 3 female ducks, all laying daily, I accumulated far more eggs than I was able to use during the summer months. I hated to see these beautiful, huge duck eggs going to waste. With a little research, I found a post from Martha Stewart explaining how to freeze eggs. Crack the egg into a bowl, add just a pinch of salt, and slide it into a ziploc bag. The salt keeps the yolk from breaking during the freezing and defrosting process. I often put 2-3 eggs in a bag. After all, not too many recipes call for a single egg. I label the bag with my trusted Sharpie, then lay the bags of shelled eggs on a cookie sheet and freeze. The cookie sheet allows my eggs to freeze flatter. Then, once frozen, I gather the baggies and stack them neatly into a gallon-size ziploc. Stacked like this, they take up very little space in my freezer and come in handy if I happen to be out of eggs and need a few.  

I recently was told by a friend that you can extend the “shelf-life” (using that term in this context cracks me up!) of your eggs by oiling them. Not that I didn’t trust her, but I DID do my research. It was hard to find good info about this and, along the way, I encountered several articles that claimed you COULD NOT freeze eggs! HA! So very wrong. I finally found an article by a farm woman who walked the reader through the process of oiling eggs.  Make sure your eggs are clean (she was using eggs from her own chicken, not store-bought, so I think this step is, likely, less important for commercially-purchased eggs), take Crisco, and coat them thinly. Make sure the entire egg is covered.  Apparently, egg shells are porous and there is air exchange. It is exposure to air over an extended period of time that causes the egg to go bad. Covering the shell with Crisco blocks the porous shell from absorbing air. Put the coated eggs back into your egg container, pointy-side down, and your eggs should now remain fresh for 4-5 months. Not quite a substitute for dehydrated egg powder in your Stores, but it will, at least, allow you to buy eggs in less expensive, bulk sizes and not have waste.

Eggs having a shelf-life and cordless tea kettles are two of the gems I brought back from our extended visit to England. Both of these pieces of information have really come in handy for our family.