By Becky Duffett

There’s something so quietly delicious about a farm egg with a rich orange yolk. Imagine sinking your fork into an egg that just rolled into peak season on a sunny spring morning. “This is when we’ll have the most flavorful eggs of the year,” confirms rancher Morgan Giammona of Tomales Bay Pastures.  

Bi-Rite carefully stacks cartons and options at the Market, and you might have noticed a label that’s become popular in the last few years — “pasture raised.” What does that mean, exactly? Well, thanks to Proposition 12, California no longer allows chickens confined in cages. While “cage free” sounds better, those birds could still be kept indoors, crowded together in a barn. So instead, “pasture raised” describes chickens who actually live outdoors, with freedom to roam and forage like in nature.  

At Tomales Bay Pastures, cheerful chickens gather on rolling green hills. Giammona started his farm seven years ago with 300 hens, when Bi-Rite was one of his first customers. Today he runs 5,000 hens across 1,000 acres, divided into five smaller flocks. That’s still considered a small farm, compared to big conventional operations with hundreds of thousands of birds, and gives his hens plenty of room for comfort. He raises a hybrid breed between a Rhode Island Red and White Leghorn, which lays warm brown eggs year round. He uses mobile coops rigged up on wheels, and he moves them every week, so the ladies have fresh forage and aren’t too hard on the land. He never closes the doors, not even at night — a guardian dog protects each flock from eagles and other predators. So his chickens have no limits and happily scratch the grass for bugs.  

Moving coops means more work, but it contributes to healthy pastures. Tomales Bay Pastures is involved with Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), an organization dedicated to preserving and improving farmland. As well as the Marin Carbon Project, which helps farms improve the quality of their soil, with the goal of offsetting greenhouse gas emissions.  

You can see and taste the difference. “You can tell the difference with a good pastured egg,” Giammona says. “It has a glowing, vibrant, almost red color.” While the flavor reaches a big buttery richness — many people say pasture-raised eggs taste more like eggs, or how eggs truly should taste.  After the chickens molt their feathers in the winter, and the grass grows green in the spring, the hens hit 90 percent production, laying about 4,500 eggs a day in peak season. Giammona personally drops their eggs off at Bi-Rite, often less than 24 hours old.   

It seems like people are always talking about eggs. Long vilified as a bad fat, they finally have a clean bill of health, and in fact, research now suggests pasture-raised eggs offer healthy fats and antioxidants. More recently, eggs have been called expensive, due to an avian flu outbreak and inflation across the country. But Giammona says that largely impacted big conventional operations. As a small and local farmer, he’s never raised his prices, and he sees a growing appetite. “In my opinion, they’re really not that expensive … ” Giammona says. “If you eat two eggs a day, it’s only a couple bucks for really good protein.” And once you taste an egg fresh from the pasture, it’s tough to go back.  

His family can’t even order eggs at brunch anymore, they’d rather make them at home. So if you’re excited to get a taste of spring eggs, here are a few fresh ideas for how to flip them.  

Eggs Over Easy on Asparagus  

Buttery yolks burst to create a natural sauce for snappy asparagus. In a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat, add asparagus and a splash of water, and season with salt. Cover and steam until tender-crisp. Transfer to plates and return the pan to the heat. Warm a drizzle of olive oil, crack in a couple of eggs, season with salt and pepper, and fry just until the whites are set, turning once. Slide the eggs on top of the asparagus and shower with lemon zest.  

Wild Mushroom Frittata

Capture the last showers of wild mushrooms in a fast frittata. Preheat the oven to 450°F. In a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, warm a drizzle of olive oil. Add 8 ounces of mushrooms, cut into bite-size pieces, and sauté until browned. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk 8 eggs, a dollop of crème fraîche, handful of chopped chives, and season with salt and pepper. Pour the eggs over the mushrooms and sprinkle with shredded gruyere. Transfer to the oven and bake until puffed and golden, about 15 minutes.

Becky Duffett is a food writer living and eating in San Francisco. Follow her on Instagram at @beckyduffett.