Farmers Market Week - Idaho: Fill & Download for Free

We moved to Des Moines in 2006 from Detroit, MI for a new job. Des Moines is known nationally for the Iowa Caucus (Democratic pre-election process); the Iowa State Fair (one of the largest / best state fairs in the country); the weekly farmers' market downtown; the "World Food Prize"; and as an insurance leader in North America.Some things that you may not have known that are equally important1) It is extremely friendly for LGBT lifestyles (Raked in top 5 by Huffington Post)2) DSM has a very exciting and vibrant food scene (more than 5 local restaurants featured on "Dine-ins, Diners and Dives")3) Des Moines is home to several really interesting tech sites (Microsoft Data Center, Facebook Data Center, etc)4) Drake University is located downtown5) Des Moines is home to one of the most beautiful state capitol buildings in the nation.6) There is a huge agriculture industrial complex here (John Deere, Vermeer, DuPont (Pioneer Hybrid), Monsanto, GE, and more)My personal experience is that the people are known for generally being nice, level-headed, and open-minded. It's fiscally conservative, but socially pretty liberal. I would say it's the biggest "small town" that you will ever visit.Side-note: People incorrectly think Des Moines is known for Potatoes (that's Idaho, not Iowa), or being really flat (that's Illinois - Central Iowa is actually quite hilly). Here is a link to a website that has more of "what DSM is known for: Rankings - Greater Des Moines Partnership

While I’m not French, I had an aunt who was. I first heard from her that eggs were sold out away from refrigeration like produce, or even by the other baking supplies rather than refrigerated like meat.I learned over time that eggs are sold like this practically everywhere else outside of North America like this or in other room-temperature settings.Why it’s different in USA and Canada is that North American egg-laying flocks frequently have endemic (as in always present) salmonella and other bacteria that allegedly can be found on the shells or even included inside the eggs from infected hens, while the European chickens are vaccinated against salmonella and other virulent organisms. I think most of this is hype, the washing rules enforced more out of fears of lawsuits rather than genuine concern for the customer. While salmonella could be a real issue for US egg producers, however rare it might truly be, EU and UK requirements for vaccination of hens against salmonella has made life a lot easier for the consumer and even the farmer.I concur with Europeans that eggs, as long as they are laid by healthy hens, can keep at moderate room temperature (below 75° F) for relatively long periods of time out in the open like fruit. The last layer on an egg is a germ-impermeable layer called the cuticle. It’s also commonly referred to as the “bloom.” This is somewhat water soluble, and if it’s removed by washing, this leaves the eggs’ pores unguarded against bacterial invasion. Once bacteria make it inside the eggs, it’s often a matter of just a few days before they spoil and sometimes even explosively rot if left out at room temperature. Refrigeration significantly delays the onset of this particular consequence of washing off the bloom.In my own experience, I compromise between the two extremes due to FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and USDA (US Department of Agriculture) regulations. My chickens are free-range, and not exposed to much in the way of disease or crowding stress. I’ll accumulate several days to weeks worth of eggs without refrigeration or washing, then wash them all at once and refrigerate them the night immediately prior to delivery to the store that sells them.Even eggs that float on immersion in wash water, as long as the bloom had been left intact until that moment are often perfectly fine and are merely partly dehydrated. If the albumen of an older egg is too thick, just add a little milk or water to your recipe to compensate for the lost moisture. I’ve eaten six-week-old or older unwashed eggs from my chickens and they don’t even taste stale.However, if an egg floats that was purchased from a North American grocery store, it’s quite often rotten and if you dare to use such an egg, suffice it to say the hydrogen sulfide smell and ghastly contents will quickly dissuade you from making that mistake twice.If I'm in a bit of a rush time-wise because the store that sells my eggs needs them quickly, I wash and quickly dry the eggs one at a time with very warm water, candle them with my LED flashlight to look for cracked eggs or ones with dark inclusions such as blood clots (very rare!) for removal, pack the good ones in clean egg cartons, drive them to the market within the next hour or so, and let them refrigerate the eggs after they pay me when I deliver.I used to do it differently.When I first started to sell my eggs about 15 or so years ago, I always washed them daily before putting them away in my dedicated egg refrigerator. I would sell them once a week or every two weeks. For some reason every few weeks I would receive complaints about some of my eggs being rotten despite my scrupulous daily washing and drying, and subsequent immediate refrigeration. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I had been doing wrong.Then (with a great deal of irony considering why this happened at first) I went through some periods of depression and didn’t wash my eggs every day. During the worst times I would let them accumulate sometimes for three to five weeks or more, then I would spend a couple of hours washing all of them, candling them and doing float tests (I would sell ‘low’-floaters and drifters {partly dried up} half price if candling showed normal contents) and discarded an amazingly small number of bad eggs. I would cull perhaps three to five out of 150 or more eggs, of which nearly all of these bad ones I discovered were cracked.Truly fresh eggs sink to the bottom and lie horizontal underwater—FYI.With more than a little guilt, I’d deliver these ‘ancient of lays’ eggs to my longest-term buyer, a place called Asian Market, and leave, hoping for the best (and fearing the worst).Not a single complaint that time, nor the next time, and so on.???During these initial depression-driven periods of delayed egg washing, I was astonished to notice I had far fewer if any complaints about eggs being rotten. I first attributed it to God having mercy on me because of my depression, but it also occurred to me that there had to be a scientific explanation for why my ‘dirty’ room-temperature eggs were almost never going bad, while many of my ‘clean’ and refrigerated eggs were going bad in only a few weeks. In fact, I never received a single complaint during the entire years of 2016 or 2017 by the time I started to intentionally not wash and refrigerate my birds’ daily production.It turned out that I had been leaving the naturally bacteria-impermeable cuticle or bloom intact on those 'neglected' unwashed eggs, thus preserving them.I now intentionally leave my unwashed eggs out at room temperature in the open on my counter for two or more weeks during slow seasons as I accumulate the minimum ten dozen I need for sale. I wash the eggs the night before or on the same day I take them to the store where I sell them (I still have to clean and refrigerate them {if I am delayed overnight delivering them} prior to delivery to the store for legal sale in the US, per FDA and USDA requirements :-p ).The wait is shorter of course during high egg-production times. :-)Asian Market customers are absolutely delighted with my eggs, a few telling me personally they taste better than ever. They’re from free-range hens, fertile, and stored in a traditional manner (I don’t advertise that fact). They sell out at $4 per dozen in a few days at most. Even the half-price stale eggs sell out quickly—it turns out that they’re not stale, merely partly dehydrated in arid southern Idaho low humidity.EDIT: I ran into the owners of the Asian Market (12/31/17) while skating in the New Year at Skateland in Twin Falls with my daughter and her best friend. When they asked me if I had any eggs, I told them I have accumulated three dozen eggs since a few of my hens resumed laying about three or so weeks ago. They practically begged me to bring in what I have for their own and local extended family’s personal use. I'm tempted to tell them why my freshest through the most stale eggs (even the ‘high-floaters’ I’d give to them for free) are consistently so good now.I routinely cook eggs for my kids and me from random eggs I pick from my accumulating area and never have problems with bad eggs.Neither my family nor I have ever gotten ill from eating any of my chickens’ eggs.Before anyone thinks that this is unsanitary, remember this: Chicks hatch from eggs that have sometimes been lying in their nests for sometimes up to a month prior to the hen brooding them, and then 21 additional days for the chicks to develop to hatching. Consider that if a month-old room temperature egg is good enough for a healthy delicate baby chick, it stands to reason that it should be okay for people, too.As for the room-temperature milk, my French aunt had nothing to say since I never asked her. However, I have seen the one-liter UHT (ultra-heat-treated or ultra-high temperature) milk in rectangular boxes in the US at Dollar Tree on shelves near other drinks in Twin Falls and Jerome, Idaho, and bought some from each place. All the kinds I drank were actually quite tasty. I guess it ended up at Dollar Tree (everything is a dollar there, usually discontinued and/or unpopular items or cheap junk) because Americans wouldn’t buy it. The only room-temperature milk Americans routinely buy is condensed milk in cans, the most popular brand being Borden (sad to say it’s out of business now).We don’t know what we’re missing.

It really depends where you’re coming from, your income, and what you like to do - if you’re an active retiree or not.The cost of living is not as great as many people think, or as great as you might hear in news reports. Housing costs here have skyrocketed in the last 5 years, just like the big jump before the recession. And it’s really hard to even find housing. The rest of cost of living is pretty OK, though, except auto fuel prices tend to be higher than surrounding states.There’s not much in the way of culture, just a few small museums, though we do have a decent symphony and Broadway touring companies do come through. the best is the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in the summer, but it is outdoors, so the weather is a factor. And as far as restaurants go, we seem to be getting more fast casual chains coming in instead of really good mom & pop places. We do have a few upscale spots in town, and a few James Beard nominated chefs, but for the most part average. We are an up-and-coming wine tasting and growing destination, and we do have a good amount of craft breweries if you’re into that kind of thing. There are also some good farmers markets.There are plenty of outdoor activities - both summer and winter. There’s a ski/mountain bike/hiking area just 20 or so miles from the city center. Hiking and biking trails, whitewater park, and kayaking/paddleboarding are a few minutes from city center. We have some of the best hunting and fishing within 100 miles, and you can fish the Boise River and most any pond in town - we’re famous for rainbow and steelhead trout and salmon fishing. The first ski resort is about 2 hours away - Sun Valley - but there’s also the pretty little mountain village of McCall about 90 miles north, with summer and winter activities on the lake and at nearby Brundage Mountain.You can check here for some other activities: Meetups near Boise, IdahoWeather is a high desert climate. Summers are hot and dry, mostly 90–100 temperatures; winters are pleasantly mild, often with little to no snow on the ground. Spring is windy and wet for weeks at a time, autumn is lovely but usually very short. Crime is relatively low, but with the rapid increase in our population, I expect that to change.BTW, if your politics lean very conservative, Boise is becoming less so - the rural areas (except for Sun Valley/Ketchum) or Eastern Idaho (Idaho City, Pocatello, Rexburg) might be better for you.