"Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs" - Mark Twain

This morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed - early, tired, and cranky. After some work on the job-hunt, I decided on breakfast. According to Mark Twain, a good breakfast makes things better, so that was my goal.

Now, I've always been the person that orders my eggs over-hard at a restaurant, and cringed at the sight of that runny yellow stuff on other peoples' plates. However after having crab cakes benedict at a local Evanston brunch spot, I learned that I just might like poached eggs. It was either that, or I really liked crab cakes and that rich hollandaise sauce enough that I didn't care the runny egg was there.

For whatever reason, it turned me on to the idea of poached eggs, and I dvr'd Julia Child's cooking show. They had this contraption that helped with the poaching, but didn't remove the egg completely out of the water like an egg-poaching pan. So of course, I had to have one.... er... two.

So I placed the little apparatus in about 3 inches of water with about a teaspoon of vinegar. I brought that to a simmer (note - simmer, don't boil or you'll have egg drop soup).


I then added my egg and let it cook for about 3 - 4 minutes.


I slid the finished product onto a plate and... ta-da! Margo's first poached egg.


This will put out a warning to my husband and father-in-law who is visiting this weekend... proper eggs benedict will be served one morning for breakfast. Let's just hope I can make hollandaise...

~M