Expat Culinary Goal

Everywhere I have ever lived (excluding Canada and the UK), there are always a few expats who after sampling all the local cuisine (sometimes several times over) begin to miss certain foods that are available back home... in fact, sometimes it isn't even particular dishes that are missed so much as just the variety. After dealing with the inability to satisfy those cravings, there are always a few (it can't be only me) who become keen to replicate in their own kitchens, those dishes they miss from back home (or other places they have been to).

Speaking personally, it is likely that had I never left Vancouver, I would never have learned to do anything domestic beyond boiling pasta and pan frying salmon. In addition to a bewildering array of cafes, restaurants and food courts, there is such a variety of freshly prepared foods in the markets and yuppy supermarkets that one rarely has to think about how to cook anything. Compound this with the fact my immediate family included one master chef and that my mother chided me throughout childhood for not even knowing how to use a can opener... alas, I developed a complex! (No Mom, I am not trying to blame you...)

Anyway, given the lack of many things I crave from home, I am slowly trying to overcome my phobia of cooking meat, dishes considered challenging and/or anything outside my small repertoire of pasta, rice, curry and dahl. Today's challenge was the daunting Eggs Benedict!
The above picture is not what I produced this morning, but rather a picture from BBC Food of a recipe by Gordon Ramsey!

Unfortunately, there is neither parma ham (or my preference - smoked salmon) nor English muffins in Hawler; hence the end result can not possibly look the photo above... but I could not photograph my result as (irrespective of the fact that it is literally impossible as I left my camera card at the office) the results were a little too embarrassing on my first try.

First of all, I tried to cheat with the poached eggs. Instead of dropping them one by one into a vortex of simmering water, I broke them into individual squares of cellophane wrap and dropped these little packets into the water. They were cooked to perfection, but when I went to put them on the bread, some of the white stuck to the cellophane... I was heartbroken. And then the hollandaise sauce - Gordon's recipe was perfect - the end result was a glossy, velvety deep yellow (I prefer this to the lighter yellow varieties).. I was so proud! But instead of taking it off the heat while I prepared the plates, I left it in the bowl where it overheated and separated... More heartbreak.

The end result, while not appearing so appetizing as the picture above, was delicious (especially as I had some fresh dill from the market), but I will try again... and post a photo so that at some later time you can share in my delight at achieving a goal. (And if you are in the vicinity, you can come to brunch some weekend).