A tipsy purple peacock

Merlot from Cramele Recaș, Timiș county, Romania - the peacock looks as if he's had a drop too much... (thanks to Razvan Chisu for this).

A peacock by Jacob Bogdani

This handsome piece by the Hungarian-born Jacob Bogdani (1658-1724) is in the Royal Collection, and is currently on display in the exhibition 'Painting Paradise: the Art of the Garden', at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 11 October.

Peafowl in the arboretum today

The white trio this afternoon

Indian blue head.

Guilty!

Doors in Chicago

In the Palmer House Hotel, Chicago - spotted recently by a friend.

Painted peafowl at Burton Agnes Hall

One of Melchior d' Hondecoeter's poultry scenes, with a peahen intruding on the gathering.

On Sunday I visited Burton Agnes Hall in the East Riding of Yorkshire - it's a very lovely late Elizabethan- early Jacobean house with fine architectural features and an amazing art collection ranging from Old Masters to contemporary artists. Among the works were these two paintings that include peafowl. It's always a pleasure to see one of Hondecoeter's poultry groups, and there are two at Burton Agnes, the other consisting of a selection of ducks, geese and a curassow.

Unattributed, but pre-Hondecoeter: a family of peafowl with a very odd-looking turkey, in the Jacobean King's State Bedroom, whose richly-carved panelling can just be seen..

Royal plumes

Pea-egg quiche

I used two eggs. The pea-eggs' mean weight is 99 g - a large hen egg is 63-73 g. 

The pied black-shouldered peahen, being 2 years old, has come into lay, but since she's not been near a male for three weeks I've assumed that the eggs are not fertile and therefore available for culinary purposes. This evening I've made a couple of quiches using these eggs, roughly following Delia Smith's basic quiche recipe, but adding bacon, a small onion (fried) and a courgette chopped into sticks and browned in the pan. I have to say I couldn't make out any particular flavour from the pea-eggs, but it was by far the tastiest quiche I've ever had.

Just out of the oven.

The yolks are not particularly richly coloured, so the filling is quite pale.