I grew up on a chicken ranch in the 40's&50's. The big "egg factories" were introduced in the 50's. We had approximately 1400-1500 chickens at a time. The big farms have thousands.Our chickens lived in large chicken houses and we allowed them to free range for a short time whenever possible. We would only let out the hens in one house at a time. We collected eggs three times a day in metal baskets, took them to our basement where they were cleaned with a sanding block if needed, weighed and packed in crates. The PCA truck came twice a week to pick up the eggs for market. Under no circumstances were we to ever wash the eggs. That was the PCA rules. Any eggs that were not easy to clean by sanding were washed and used quickly by our family. My parents said washing meant that the life of the egg was shortened.

"the crushing sound is satisfying" You crack me up. :) Mr Yan, if you have chickens, you can put those egg shells in a separate dish for the chickens to eat 'free choice'. This will give them the calcium they need to keep making sturdy shells. If you don't have chickens I'm sure you still have plenty of foods going into your worm bin to balance out the eggs, so just put them into the food bucket and let the calcium start reacting with the food juices immediately. You don't mention how large your worm bin is, so it's impossible to make a worthwhile guess for how much would be harmful. Here's something about aglime that I think is related though. If I put a little aglime on my bin, everything is better. If I put a lot of it on my bin, even though it's a solid powder, it will end up rinsing through 2 feet of material and ending up in the juice collection bucket. When the lime is in the juice bucket, it will flocculate the solids out of the juice and make them settle (just like in a water treatment plant). I don't know if that's good or great for the plants, but it is a pain to keep the solids in suspension long enough to apply the juice to my trees and plants. If you have too many eggshells, I suspect that the excess shells will sit there with nothing left to react to. The worms will likely only eat the ones that are appropriately sized, so the large pieces will likely end up in the finished casts and subsequently sit in the dirt while they slowly dissolve. I consider all of that to be good though because eggshells are pretty stable if there is nothing present to react with them. This makes them a time release PH buffer that supplies calcium as a side benefit. I've read that every time it rains, a significant quantity of calcium is rinsed below the reach of plant roots. Putting lots of shells in your worm bin means that you have gotten benefit from the egg foodstuff, a sweetened bin, and a lasting supplement for your garden. I would try not to bypass the bin with those, or you may be missing out on the bin benefit as well as simplifying your disposal efforts. Also, if you know you won't be gaining every benefit from the shells during the time frame that they are in the bin, you can free yourself of some of the time involved in crushing them, as they won't all need to be in tiny fragments for the worms to get enough. Since you already have a stockpile of the shells though, I would resist the urge to add them all at once.

Beverlyal...goodness, I hope I didn't come across as one who thinks anyone's taste in food is superior to that of anyone else. Jeepers, I have a secret penchant for Chef Boyardee's Beef-a-Roni (which amuses my husband no end), so who am I to take on airs! :D I was simply puzzled at your expressed distaste for poached eggs, since you and I are in complete agreement regarding cooked-white, runny-yolk, and if the poached egg in question meets those criteria, it just tastes like an over-medium or a properly soft-boiled egg to me...the butter for the poached being provided by the hollandaise, and for the soft boiled, by the toast I eat it on. But, it may well be that you taste something I do not, or perhaps the texture difference turns you off. As you say, it would be boring if everyone had the same tastes...there would be more competition for favorite foods as well! :D By the way, there are many things that I'm lukewarm on that I could eat with pleasure if they were smothered in hollandaise....mmmmm!

It's a neat idea but I would like it to be done with fillings rather than toppings. IOW, have the items you mention mixed with the filling. I don't know how the logistics of my idea could be worked out. Maybe the guests would pipe their choice of filling into the empty HB egg whites. Or maybe there would be someone to fill them to order. Toppings would be garnishes to sprinkle on. Would that take the fun out of it? Maybe my suggestion would amount to nothing more than offering an array of eggs already prepared. Would that take the fun out of it? Off hand, the only suggestions I have for additional ingredients are capers, lox and caviar. Jim