We took a break from fried eggs at breakfast today. I baked eggs, and a few other odds and ends, inspired in part by the rare appearance in the refrigerator of both crème fraîche and heavy cream, not to mention some very ripe tomatoes and a wonderful sturdy and crusty bread.

It started with leeks.

• four or 5 chopped thin leeks from Willow Wisp Farm, cooked with 3 or 4 tablespoons of butter inside a tin-lined heavy copper sauté pan until they were tender, approximately a third of a cup of chopped herbs added and stirred in (thyme, rosemary, and parsley from S. & S.O. Farm; peppermint and sage from Phillips Farm; tarragon from Willow Wisp Organic Farm; oregano from Keith’s Farm; and lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge), plus 2 chopped fresh habanada peppers from Norwich Meadows Farm, after which leeks, herbs and peppers transferred to a buttered glazed ceramic oven dish, the mixture spread evenly on the bottom, 6 eggs from Millport Dairy Farm cracked on top, a couple handfuls of golden cherry tomatoes from Phillips Farm scattered about, and dollops of Ronnybrook Farms crème fraîche, which had been stirred with a little heavy cream from the same local maker, dropped on the surfaces around the eggs and the tomatoes, the dish seasoned with good sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a bit of crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino, a pinch of dried fenugreek fromBombay Emerald Chutney Company, the pan set on a rack in the middle of an oven that had been preheated to 400º, until the eggs had set and the cream almost entirely absorbed, served on 2 plates atop 4 thick slices of a whole wheat sourdough Miche  from Bread Alone bakery that had been toasted on my no-bread-too-thick ‘Camp-A-Toaster’ [see this post], and garnished with purple micro radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the music was the entire album of music by Johann Adolf Hasse, ‘Salve Regina’, with Barbara Bonney and Bernarda Fink, Reinhard Goebel conducting Musica Antiqua Cologne