Fried Ramps and Eggs

Spring. The redbuds are blooming, the construction site is drying out, and Clay has two months left of high school. Two months. Sixty days between my son and the Army. The countdown has started and every morning when Clay walks out the door to school I think: fifty-nine days. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven. I don't say this out loud. Connie is doing the same count in her head. We know because we look at each other in the mornings and the look says: I know. I'm counting too.

Amber's clinicals are going well. She called on Sunday, buzzing with the energy of a woman who has found her purpose. She said she helped deliver a baby last week. Not alone — she was assisting — but she was there, hands in it, and when the baby came out crying she cried too because that's what you do when life begins in your hands. She said "Dad, I knew. I knew right then that this is what I'm supposed to do." I said "I know." And I do know. I've watched Amber find her thing the way I found mine — not through a plan but through the moment when the work stops feeling like work and starts feeling like breathing. The kitchen is my breathing. The hospital is hers.

This week: ramps again. April, the ramps are up, and this year I drove to Evarts specifically to forage them. Saturday morning, five AM departure, three hours to Harlan County, and I was on Betty's hillside by nine with a bucket and a knife, digging ramps the way I dug them at ten years old with Earl. The ramps were thick, fragrant, pushing through the leaf litter with the determination of things that have been underground and want out. I know the feeling.

I picked two grocery bags full. Brought half to Betty, kept half. She was waiting on the porch with a skillet already heating and eggs already cracked into a bowl. We fried ramps and eggs together — her at the stove, me at the cutting board — and ate them on toast on the porch at ten-thirty in the morning and the mountains were green and the air was warm and the ramps smelled like Harlan County in April, which is the best thing Harlan County smells like, and Betty looked at me and said "This is what I miss when you don't come."

She misses me. She won't say she's lonely. She'll say she misses the ramps. She'll say she misses the cooking. But she means she misses me — the specific me that comes once a month and mows the lawn and fixes things and sits on the porch and eats ramps and doesn't talk too much because the not-talking is the talking. I miss her too. I miss her even while I'm sitting next to her because I can see the thinning, the slowing, the eyes that don't track like they used to, and I miss the version of her that could see the garden from the porch without squinting.

That morning on Betty’s porch — ramps popping in the skillet, eggs going soft, mountains greening up behind us — I kept thinking how a recipe like this doesn’t need improving. It needs remembering. So here it is, the way Betty and I made it, the way Earl made it before either of us knew what we were doing. Ramps. Eggs. Toast. April.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 large bunches fresh ramps (about 20-24 ramps), roots trimmed
8 large eggs
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 thick slices crusty bread, toasted

Instructions

Clean the ramps. Rinse ramps thoroughly under cold water to remove any grit or dirt from foraging. Pat dry. Separate the leaves from the white and pink bulbs. Slice the bulbs into thin rounds. Roughly chop the leaves and set aside separately.
Cook the bulbs. Melt butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced ramp bulbs and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes until softened and fragrant.
Scramble the eggs. Crack eggs into a bowl, add salt and pepper, and beat lightly with a fork — you want them just combined, not frothy. Pour eggs into the skillet over the ramp bulbs. Let them sit for 30 seconds, then gently push and fold with a spatula, cooking over medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes until the eggs are soft and just barely set.
Add the leaves. Toss in the chopped ramp leaves during the last 30 seconds of cooking. Stir once or twice to wilt them into the eggs. Remove from heat immediately — the residual heat will finish the job.
Serve on toast. Spoon the ramps and eggs over thick slices of toasted bread. Season with another pinch of salt if needed. Eat on the porch if you’ve got one.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fried Ramps and Eggs — Betty’s Porch, Harlan County, April