Local Eggs & Cereal Alternatives

Hi, I'm John Cant. I run http://www.marumarket.co.uk/ which is an online shopping and home delivery service from 5 local independent grocery shops in Beverley. Anthony and Amalia have asked me to write a guest post so here goes...

I don't want to plug my business too much but can't help mentioning it since it's here to help overcome some of the barriers to shopping at local shops which Antony and Amalia mentioned in their final reflections post. The main obstacle is time and limited opening hours but with our service this is less of a problem as we deliver in the evenings when most people are at home. Plug over and on with the post :-)...

In winter, we buy logs for our fire from the farm on Dog Kennel Lane just north west of Beverley. One day we discovered that they also sell fresh free-range eggs from their hens around the back of the farm too. Now it's nearly summer and we're not using logs anymore we've continued to buy our eggs there. They're fresh, our money's going straight to the producer and our 2 year old daughter enjoys watching the hens for a few minutes and now understands where eggs come from. There's no comparison with shopping at supermarket. Not to mention the price of eggs in Tesco! There are lots of farms which sell eggs direct. I'm sure you've noticed many an “Eggs for Sale” sign as you're driving around so why not stop the next time you see one? And let us know where the best one are...

This takes me on the topic of breakfast which I remember Amalia & Antony writing about recently, saying how they struggled to find things to eat when they couldn't have cereal. Last Sunday morning, we looked in the cupboard and found half a loaf of stale bread. If we'd bought it at the supermarket then it would probably have gone straight in the compost bin. But since we got it from a local baker it felt very wasteful to do that since we appreciate the time and effort put into its baking. The result? French Toast with our farm fresh eggs. The stale bread actually improved the texture and it tasted fantastic. 

Another option for breakfast is kippers. It's something which isn't fashionable these days but again it makes a fantastic change from cereals and has been a staple British breakfast for many many years. It doesn't take long to make either. Simply grill while toasting bread and making a cup of tea or coffee. It's done in 5 minutes. And Beverley's very own fishmonger, Peck, sells fantastic home smoked fish so it's a great opportunity to have something different for breakfast.

My wife is Japanese and so from time to time we have rice & miso soup for breakfast to help get our daughter used to Japanese food. Recently we added a kipper to the dish too.  Maybe it's not for everyone but I'll add it to the mix of breakfast options.

Thank you Antony & Amalia for asking me to write a guest post for you and it would be great if you could write a post for my blog one day soon...