The Egg. Pop-Up Paused.

Saturday, 18 April 2026 — Sea Breeze Farm, Neverstill, Oregon

The Egg

Early in our relationship I attempted to make George an egg. His facial expression upon its arrival told me everything: I did not know how to cook an egg.

The next day George kindly took the time to show me. He took his perfectly cured black steel pan down from its wrought iron hook. The sheen of it was akin to the reflection you see on a freshly zambonied ice rink, faint images sliding across its satin surface.

The pan was purchased by George on one of his weekend excursions to Paris when he was a young adult, where he frequented his favorite cookware shop, E. Dehillerin, to purchase kitchen battery staples.

This pan is capable of awakening one’s understanding of French cooking through the feedback loop of its patina. Let me explain what I mean.

French professional kitchens have relied on carbon or black steel pans as the everyday workhorse for centuries. It has been affectionately nick-named “grandma’s pan”, or Poêle de nos grands-mères, as it is ancestral, robust, timeless, and irreplaceable in the kitchen. (I love this, as I’ve often affectionately referred to George as a French grandma chef).

The entire concept of this pan is that, once cured, it is non-stick if proper French cooking technique is applied.

To cure, take the clean pan to a hot flame until it starts to smoke. Take a pat of lard or tallow and swirl it around the pan, until it’s fully glazed with a silky sheen. Pour the remaining fat out, turn off the heat. After it cools, return the pan to the high flame, add the fat, swirl and repeat. After doing this 4–6 times, you will have beautifully seasoned black steel.

Back to the egg.

George took the appropriate amount of our homemade cultured butter…

Let me pause here for a moment. Butter, and the correct amount of it, is quintessential to George’s cooking at Coq au Vin. And he usually uses much more than anyone could imagine, and of highest quality too. That day, he used a golden dollop made from the cream from our Shorthorn cows we raised on Vashon Island. At the time, they were grazing on the bloom of lush spring grass. It tasted herby, grassy, nutty, even a little coconut-y. The butter was divine.

While he waited for the yellow spoonful to slowly melt, he cracked a single farm egg into a small glass bowl.

The tide of butter swelled and foamed. As the bubbles deflated, and the wave withdrew, he tilted the pan to pool near the edge. He carefully slid the orange-yolked beauty into the golden liquid, allowing the melted fat to carry the egg to the middle of the pan as he tilted it back flat. As the egg slid, it blushed white at the heat. He swirled the egg in the pan, and flipped it over on itself, without it departing the riveted glossy black. After a few meditative moments he extinguished the flame.

The floral-rimmed plate the egg was delivered to me on was a wedding present George had gifted to himself, when he “married himself”. It was beautiful Villeroy & Boch china, the motif appropriately named ‘French Garden Vienne’. The egg was swaddled in its own whites, with only a thin layer of crusty gray salt crystals veiling it.

The egg swooned when my silver spoon thrust its lip into her bulge. She cried tears of golden orange sunshine, melting from her like a stream of spilling wax. I took my first bite. In that moment I realized, that until now, I’d never had an egg in my life.

George and I look forward to sharing with you the seed from which the farm sprang: the passion to cook. Please join us this spring at Coq au Vin, where the menu is written by the abundance of our farm, a true expression of the season of each day, cooked perfectly in the pan of our hearts, for you.

See you tableside.

With love,

Rose, George & Farmily

Magic Meat Truck announcement

Although it is heart-achingly difficult to do so, we have decided to put our beloved Magic Meat Truck Pop-up on pause. We will no longer be showing up Sunday with our farmy and culinary delights in the Rose City. We will still offer a small selection of goods for sale at the restaurant, and will continue to offer shipping. Stay tuned for a follow-up announcement.

From the kitchen

Gésiers and miner’s lettuce salad

French butter enriched pan sauce over spring vegetables with our magret de canard

Agnolotti using the orange-yolked spring eggs

On the farm

Nettles we gathered in the woods of Neverstill.

Rose’s early years on the farm, making mountains of butter. We called it “Yellow Rose”.

Our newest addition to the farm, our most recent calf named Ponderosa.

Join us at the farm

We have seats available for our farm experiences this summer, as well as availability for private farm experiences. We are so eager to share our farm with you. Join us.

Join us for an immersive dining experience on the farm.

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