Ducks, diaries, the moon

I really love desk diaries but this year I rather stuffed up. The State Library of Victoria which produces my favourite diary chose not to do so this year which left me with a bit of a vacuum. On my initial search I found nothing, so first of all decided I would buy a blank one and pretty it up with pictures as I went. So I laid out money on an expensive blank diary only to decide that this was a hopeless venture as I am not artistically inclined, and all the pictures I wanted to put in were too big. Then I decided I would produce a digital one with photographs from here and there - and indeed I did do this, but because of its length it's too expensive to actually get printed. So back to the shops I went and eventually bought one featuring the works of one Charley Harper - an American artist who seems to have painted birds and lived from 1922-2007. But it didn't really have enough space for me to write in my 'to do' lists. Then at Christmas my almost daughter-in-law gave me an unillustrated but very practical and pretty diary and so I am now using this for my 'to dos' and engagements and I have Charley Harper propped up on my desk so that I can admire the images. This is this week's image. There - I have got to the point, well the inspiration for today's post.

I love this one. The blue, the lines the quilt like pattern of the ducks. It's calm and soothing. They're straight lines - very straight - and yet they suggest ripples on the water, and clouds across the moon. It's called Loonrise - which is a bit fey and folksy and, dare I say, American.

So where do I go from here? Foodwise I mean. I've spoken about ducks before when we had the babies in our tree. Besides it seems rather gruesome to start talking about eating ducks in the face of such a beautiful picture. All the baby ducks around here are growing now and we see small families of survivors every now and then.

So I thought I would talk about duck eggs.

I don't think I have ever eaten duck eggs - well obviously not at at home - they are difficult to find in the shops and expensive when you do. But not in restaurants either. And having looked into it a bit I am now beginning to wonder why.

According to various websites that I have now looked at - possibly biased ones - duck eggs are much better than chicken's eggs.

"duck eggs are a phenomenal treat. a ramped-up version of a chicken egg that has a much bigger and richer yolk, a higher concentration of nutrients and more protein that the standard hen's egg." Modern Farmer

That just about sums up everything I read elsewhere. So why are they not available - well easily anyway? Our two major supermarket chains do not stock them. Well they don't stock quail eggs either. And it seems to me that they are also rarer than quail's eggs in markets and specialist foodie stores. Quail's eggs however, are increasingly around and not too expensive. And there are lots of recipes for them, besides being amazingly pretty.

"There's nothing a chicken egg can do that a duck egg can't" Modern Farmer"

Well sort of it seems to me, having now read a bit around the subject. I suspect the problem is that because they are bigger, and have tougher shells, you need to cook them a little bit differently to chicken eggs, and nobody is telling you how. Delia - who really 'does' eggs in her first volume of her cookery course, only mentions them in passing without really telling you how to adjust quantities. You can find the odd recipe here and there - Yotam Ottolenghi is one who has one. But really there are not many. Taste has some, but tellingly, almost all of them are Asian. Quail's eggs however pop up much more frequently.

And yet the general opinion seems to be that they taste better and are more nutritious and are wonderful for baking. In addition to the cook's view of things, from the breeder's point of view, they are also stars. They seem to be better layers than chickens and, moreover, eat up things like slugs that get at crops. I do know they are messy though - they leave a lot of pooh around. And apparently they tread all over their eggs. And maybe that's the problem.

There seems to be a slight worry that they are potentially dangerous. The shells are more porous and therefore any pooh or dirt that gets on the shell may go through to the egg - well the bacteria anyway. But then again you would think that large-scale farming would find a way around this. And most sites seemed to think that if you are careful then all will be well. And by the way don't buy eggs with feathers and stuff on them - it's natural but not healthy.

There's obviously some reason that is lurking in the background somewhere which prevents major commercial production. Even small organic kind of production for the greenies.

Asians don't seem to mind though. They eat lots of duck eggs. And they are pretty aren't they? Maybe they are just waiting to be the next big thing.