Thursday Thoughts # 39

from One For The Money by Janet Evanovich

"....I shuffled into the kitchen and stood in front of the refrigerator, hoping the refrigerator fairies had visited during the night. I opened the door and stared at the empty shelves, noting that food hadn't magically cloned itself from the smudges in the butter keeper and the shriveled flotsam at the bottom of the crisper."

"I flopped onto my bed, spread-eagle on my back. This was my thinking position when things appeared to be futile. It had obvious advantages: I could nap while I waited for something brilliant to pop into my mind."


today's thoughts 

I'm giving up eggs. 

Not entirely, so perhaps I should clarify.
I'm giving up fried eggs and scrambled eggs, both of which I love, but I'll still use eggs to make pancakes and other yummy things that need eggs. 

Chocolate cake for instance. 
Chicken Schnitzels.

Sometime ago, here in Australia, there was a problem with chickens on the farms that supply the egg companies. 
I don't recall what it was, but many chickens were destroyed and this caused an egg shortage.

The shortage wasn't immediately apparent, millions of eggs had already been laid and were available for our consumption. 

A few weeks later there were gaps on supermarket shelves where once there had been boxes of deliciousness. 

Now the egg supply appears to have recovered, the shelves are once again filled with many different branded boxes all claiming to be fresh eggs.
But are they? 
Fresh, I mean. 
How fresh? 
Have these eggs been kept in long term storage?

I ask because they taste different. They taste wrong. They taste stale. 
Not "off" exactly, but not nice and even after coffee or tea, (whichever you drink with breakfast), the stale egg taste lingers in the mouth. 

The white of the egg when fried is the stale (awful) tasting part, the yolk has no flavour at all. Certainly not the yummy richness I've been used to. 
Scrambled, the eggs just taste stale-not-quite-off, but very certainly not fresh. 

How long do we have to put up with this? I've tried several different brands of eggs and all are the same. 
The one exception was the dozen I'd bought at the local market held on the third Saturday of each month. Free range, from his own chooks.
But I often forget to go there, or just can't be bothered, or I'm too busy.

So there's a lot less eggs being consumed here in this small household. 

Let's move on to a completely different type of egg.

Chocolate eggs. 
Sold by the million every year at Easter. 

For many, many years, my preferred chocolate bunny was the Red Tulip brand. 
The 'giant rabbit' dressed in foil designed to look like the toy soldier on a Christmas Tree. 

Then I discovered the Lindt bunny and bought those for a couple of years, but they're a bit pricey so I switched back to the Red Tulip giant rabbits which had now increased in price to rival the Lindt, but were larger, so the kids got more chocolate for the money.
Then the kids grew up and no longer expected chocolate bunnies from Nanny, so I bought Lindt bunnies for myself. 

Then, one year, Gubor bunnies appeared on the shelves at Coles. I tried one and was hooked.
 Best chocolate ever!! 
So those were what I bought for myself each Easter for several years. 

At some point during those years, Red Tulip was sold to Cadbury, and the chocolate changed.
Still good eating, but less rich, the kind of blandness I'd become used to tasting when eating anything Cadbury. (less cocoa solids in the mix, I no longer buy Cadbury chocolate)

This year, I discovered my beloved Gubor bunnies are no longer available in Australia. I searched online and discovered they are available in New Zealand supermarkets, but that's a long way to go for a silver/blue wrapped chocolate bunny.  
And they don't ship to Australia :(

Last week I was shopping in my local Woolworths and noticed Red Tulip bunnies on special. I thought to myself, "Hmmm, will I or won't I?"

I did. 
I bought a Red Tulip bunny. Took it home, smashed it up, took one bite. 

And threw it away.
Yes, that's right. I threw away chocolate. 

That chocolate tasted like the very cheap nasty stuff available in the $2 shops. 
The stuff with foreign lettering on the label near the English lettering. 
I got the wrapper out of the bin and checked. 
No foreign lettering, but the Cadbury website is listed. 
So they still own the Red Tulip brand, but what have they done to their chocolate? 
It is awful!
So this is another area where I am giving up eggs. Even if they are shaped like bunnies.