Price Upon Request #5
Magnum Opus Farms, and my own American dream.
It's that golden hour of the year where time ceases to exist, and for about 5 magical days nothing seems to matter. I have slept 10 hours three nights in a row and the only thing I “did” today was walk 7 miles in the snow, with my father 20 steps ahead, quietly leading the way. The only other person we encountered was a man, about early seventies, wearing a beret—very authentically, I might add—dragging an 8-foot tree trunk under his arm. He didn’t acknowledge us, which filled me with admiration and even some envy.
Seeing this man with his tree very predictably (for me) stirred a recurring dream I have of a quiet pastoral existence. I understand that I am unlikely to see this vision realized, as I have in no way set my life up to achieve this, but I can’t seem to extinguish the fantasy, for my imagined rural farm life is quite vivid. It even already has a name: Magnum Opus Farms. I will grow rare heirloom versions of all my favorite vegetables and have obscure breeds of animals, each with its own designated shelter carefully designed by yours truly. Think pig palace, hen house, cow den… You get the idea.
When it comes to the animals, I will have one of each—not only because Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall had a profound impact on me, but also because as E.B. White wisely implies in One Man’s Meat, one of anything is a companion, two is a career. (He had two geese, the first he named Liz, the second he named Apathy, which frankly, tells you everything you need to know.)
And it is with my beautiful and utterly impractical fictitious farm that we arrive at today’s topic: egg cups! A timely one, I think, as we’re all at home luxuriating and—hopefully—indulging in long, elaborate breakfasts. I personally hate breakfast and don’t eat eggs, but if I did, I would have dippy-eggs-and-soldiers. It’s not only the chicest breakfast one can have, but also the most architectural.
So, here I give you: six egg cups for thirty-six soldiers.
You thought it wasn't possible! These Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot egg cups have a nice pinch of playfulness that pairs well with their harsh German austerity. A personal favorite.
A stunning breakfast for one.
And how charming?
You can rarely go wrong with any Carl Auböck object, though this is really more of a ‘holder’ rather than cup. I like that they stack and create a new self-contained object when not being used.
If you’re like me and hate eggs, but want in on the fun, I highly recommend this Ginori egg cup. It is purely decorative, and does not actually hold an egg, but it is one of my favorite objects they make, and comes in multiple sizes. I want a dozen!
If you breakfast with others, and want to impress them, you ought to get yourself an egg cruet. A step above the common egg cup, they are often silver plated and come with spoons, a tray, salt server, and this one even has a bowl to discard the shells!!
While I absolutely cannot for the life of me tell you where to find this, I do feel the need to share. In 2017, a few months after my grandmother died, my aunt and I were going through some of her belongings, you know, sifting through the miscellanea one accumulates over the course of a lifetime. Among the costume jewelry, letters, photographs, and random needlepoints my mother had made as a teenager, there lay in front of us an untouched box addressed to my grandmother, postmarked from Italy with the date 1992 stamped on it. After calling my mom to obtain her blessing to go forth and open it, we did, and there they were…not one, but TWO sets. We kept one, my aunt kept the other.
That’s all!!!
‘one of anything is a companion, two is a career’ …. me to my parents lol
the wallpaper?!! j’adore!