Cookbook author to talk raw eggs at Mattapoisett Library
It’s tempting to scream “Salmonella!” when Jennifer Trainer Thompson talks about making raw egg smoothies but the “The Fresh Egg Cookbook” author and backyard chicken farmer says there are all sorts of thing you can do with eggs when you know where they came from.
Thompson, a former Mattapoisett resident, got the idea for chicken farming after tasting a neighbor’s home laid eggs.
“They were so different than store bought eggs. The yolks were much more vivid and the taste was richer,” she said.
A few years later Thompson’s husband suggested they get their own coop.
“We did it as an adventure,” said the mother of two. “As anybody who has chickens realizes, once they lay, they lay furiously. I had to think about what to do with them.”
At the time, Thompson was already a popular cookbook author. She has been nominated for the James Beard award three times, one of the most prestigious culinary accolades, appeared in “Martha Stewart Living” and become a hot sauce guru.
When the eggs started piling up, Thompson had her next cookbook idea.
“It became apparent, having our own hens, that we could resurrect great recipes from the past that have largely died out – real Caesar salads, hollandaise sauce, smoothies with raw eggs,” said Thompson.
But “The Fresh Egg Cookbook” is by no means a tribute to raw eggs. The book has over 100 recipes, including lemon meringue pie, frittata and spaghetti carbonara.
Thompson developed many of the book’s dishes herself and also used her great grandmother’s recipe book for inspiration, even mastering the lemon soufflé.
“I’ve always been intimidated by soufflés, but they’re really pretty easy,” she said.
Thompson was recently featured in a Q&A on chicken-keeping on the New York Times Diner’s Journal blog.
The author, who collects hot sauces and has her own line called “Jump Up and Kiss Me,” has also been busy promoting “Hot Sauce!” a book of recipes for and using hot sauce, that came out in April.
Thompson will give a book signing and lecture at the Mattapoisett Public Library, Saturday, May 12 at 2 p.m.
