Eggs: What is ‘local’ really?

Let’s get the bad news out of the way: I am five weeks behind on my Dark Days blog posts. You know, that challenge, the fourth-annual eat-local Dark Days Challenge, the one I pledged to triumphantly do in the name of all things locavore?

Well, the good news is I’ve been cooking local meals — one per week as required by the challenge. I just haven’t been writing about them … until today.

So, let’s go: During Week 6 of the Dark Days Challenge, I focused on local eggs and mushrooms.

All year long, I use a variety of Western Washington eggs that range from almost 100 percent SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical) to what I like to call quasi-SOLE or quasi-local eggs. Here’s a list of the eggs I use in order or decreasing awesomeness:

Sky Valley Family Farm of Startup: I featured this farm in The Herald in 2007 as part of our Get Fresh series and I trust this family completely.

They treat their hens and the land well, my definition of SOLE. They’re not fed organic feed (last I checked), but the hens are pastured, which means they eat grass and bugs as well as grain to produce beautiful eggs with deep-orange yolks.

This is the closest I’m going to get to backyard eggs. If I had my own hens, well, that would be preferable, or eggs from a friend’s hens. (You usually can find Sky Valley at Everett’s Sno-Isle Food Co-op.)

Stiebrs Farms of Yelm and Wilcox Family Farms of Roy: These Olympia-area farms are larger egg producers.

I haven’t been to either of them and I don’t know how well their animals are treated or how much pasture time they get, if any.

But, they’re local (my definition is Washington) and don’t seem to be run by big corporations. (You’ll find these brands at places such as Top Food & Drug, QFC and Costco.)

National Food Corp., based in Everett: These guys have hen houses in Snohomish County and far beyond (including properties in Montana and South Dakota).

National produces many of the big brands you see at QFC, including Cherry Lane, Naturally Nested, Naturally Organic and so forth.

They’re so big they export to Pacific Rim nations. I called this operation to see if I could get a tour of a local facility and no one called me back.

I eat these eggs only if I can’t get my hands on something else. At least they aren’t shipped from Ohio, right? (At least I don’t think they are shipped from Ohio.)

Note: In summer, I buy eggs, usually from Sky Valley, at the seasonal Edmonds farmers market.

Anyway, back to cooking: First, I attempted to make a strata using my Sky Valley eggs (procured at the Resident Cheesemonger shop in Edmonds).

I’m not going to write much about the strata because I didn’t like how it turned out (I think I’m a frittata person) and I accidentally dumped in a bunch of non-local Parmesan (when I meant to use my local Beecher’s Flagship cheese).

Not thinking, again, I also used leftover Christmas ham that wasn’t local. Dumb.

Dark Days FAIL.

In an effort to redeem myself, I followed that up a few days later with a pure and simple meal of Sky Valley scrambled eggs (which are becoming increasingly available with laying season in full swing), and a side of quasi-SOLE bacon from Hempler’s, which comes out of Whatcom County, though I don’t know where the hogs are raised.

Their website says, oddly, “Our product line includes no-nitrite ham, bacon and sausage using naturally grown Oregon Country Beef.”

Beef?

I’m wonder: Where do their pigs come from?

I also cooked up a side of cremini mushrooms, sauteed in small batches in Golden Glen Creamery butter. Yum, right?

Were the mushrooms local or SOLE? Well, that’s another debate.

I had mushrooms from Ostrom’s (Olympia, 78 miles away from my home in Edmonds) and Champ’s (Aldergrove, B.C., 100 miles away, just across the border).

Ostrom’s is big, producing 13 million pounds a year. Champ’s seems large, too, but I don’t know much about them.

I know the most locavore option would be foraged and found mushrooms at Seattle farmers markets, but they don’t seem to have the buttonlike mushrooms I adore, you know?

This challenge so often begs the tricky question: How local does something need to be to fit your definition of local?