Eggs From the Sea

There was a time when I didn’t live in the snow covered wastelands of Northern Virginia. I lived in the snow covered hills of Central Pennsylvania, specifically in State College, Pennsylvania, home of the Pennsylvania State University. I did however, have a good friend that I’ve known since high school who did live in the snow covered wastelands of Northern Virginia, specifically Manassas, Virginia home of…well, pretty much nothing unless you like Civil War museums.

Now this friend, we shall call him Damian since that’s his name, had gone and gotten his pilot’s license. That alone should have been a bone chilling thought but being a good friend, I was very supportive of any endeavor that provided personal growth, no matter how dangerous that growth might be. One fine spring morning, I get a call from Damian announcing that he now had his pilot’s license and that he was going to buzz up to State College and pick up Ms Cocktail and I and where would we like to go?

Well, since Hawaii was probably not reachable in a Piper Cub, we settled on Ithaca, New York. Now Ithaca is a wonderful little college town in it’s own right, it happens to be home to both Ithaca College and Cornell University. It also happens to be an excellent jumping off point for people that may be interested in visiting some of the Finger Lakes wineries. Ithaca, is located right at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake, the second largest of the Finger Lakes and at the time this story took place, there were eight wineries all within quick driving distance of Ithaca proper.

Let’s take a moment to hop in the Wayback Machine for a second. Ms Cocktail and I had been travelling up to the Finger Lakes for about eight years at this point. We had reached a certain rapport with the purveyors and winemakers at several of the wineries on Cayuga Lake. Mostly because the friends that originally introduced us to this phenomenon had something that contrasted so very highly with Ms Cocktail and I that we stood out. Ms Cocktail still has long, flowing hair about half way down her back and at that point in time, I did too. My friend Ken had started losing his hair in high school and was almost completely bald by this time and his wife Michele had a bob. We were known as the Long Haired and Short Haired People.

So back to the time frame of this story. Damian dutifully arrives in State College with his rented Piper Cub and a bright cheery smile. He explains to us that one of the more important aspects of keeping an airplane from allowing gravity to work it’s magic and have the Earth and the airplane not so gracefully combine at a speed of 120 ft/second is to have thing balanced properly in the airplane. This meant that I had to sit in the back seat while Damian and Ms Cocktail occupied the seats in the front.

The flight up to Ithaca that day was pretty much uneventful. A beautiful sky filled with large puffy clouds threw shadows across the ridges and valleys of of the Appalachian Mountains. Ms Cocktail got to fly the plane for a bit, something she was totally not happy with. By the time we got to Ithaca though, the clouds had started to fill in and there were fewer and fewer patches of sunlight on the ground.

It is at this point that things got, well, a little hinkey. Damian calls into the tower at the Ithaca airport and requests landing instructions. They tell him the runway he should land on and the execute all their required communications. Damian finds the runway and starts preparing for landing. You know, slowing down, setting wing flaps, that sort of thing. He suddenly gets a call from the tower telling him that he’s on the wrong end of the runway and that he shouldn’t be landing there. After a bit of a frenzy in the cockpit as Damian attempts to figure out just what the hell went wrong here, he heads about a mile past the runway, does a 180 by standing the plane on a wing, and comes in for a landing (albeit, a bit hot) at the proper end of the runway.

At this point, I’m just as giddy as a kid in a candy store because I’m a daredevil at heart, but Ms Cocktail is as white as a ghost.

We promptly get the plane stored and made the proper plans to get it refueled for the return trip the following day and prepare to find ourselves a place to stay for the evening. Oops, on small fly in the ointment here, it is graduation weekend at both Ithaca College AND Cornell. So off we go to the local Wegmans to find A) lunch and B) a phone book to start calling around for a place to stay.

An hour later we find what is most likely the last two rooms in the area. They are in a boarding house right next to Cornell University. Great! After seeing the place though, we’ve taken to calling it the Bates Motel. It is a rundown, nasty sort of place. the guy at the front desk is huge and has to turn himself sideways to squeeze himself out from behind it. Everything is gray and dingy. But it is warm and dry so off to the wineries we go.

Four hours and several wine tastings later, we return to the Bates Motel with several cases of wine in tow. Our experience at the wineries was excellent, once again being remembered as the long haired people at a couple of them and given private tours. Damian says he has to go check on something and that he’d catch up with us in a bit. About a half hour later he returns with a somewhat sheepish look on his face. There are two situations that need to be remedied, one which we can take care of ourselves and one we can’t. The first is that with all the wine we bough, the plane will be overweight so we’ve either got to drink it or give it away. The second is that we’ll have two days to drink it because there weather coming in the next day and he isn’t rated to fly on instruments only.

Of course, being the trooper that I am, I immediately cracked open a bottle of sparkling wine to begin doing my part in getting us home.

Fast forward to the next morning. There is definitely a fog that has nothing to do with low lying clouds. There is a place nearby that offers breakfast/brunch so once we’ve collectively gotten our act together, we walk the couple of blocks down to the place. There are two remarkable things about this joint. The first is that they have this guy’s brain in a jar on display in the restaurant. It seems that he was some type of genius and that his brain was supersized and there it is for you to look at while shoveling in your hangover breakfast. The second was that this was the place that introduced me to non-traditional Eggs Benedict.

They had six different varieties of Eggs Benedict but the one that stood out to me the most was the one where they substituted Nova Lox for the Canadian Bacon. This has stayed with me over the years and it is the inspiration behind my Eggs From the Sea.

In addition to this long story to get to this point, there is still a bit of information that I need to pass on before we get to the recipe although most of it will have been written down before then. No, I need to speak to you about poaching eggs.

Poaching eggs is not a terribly difficult thing to do but it may take a little practice. Here’s the most important thing you need to know. Do not attempt to poach eggs in boiling water. The water should be at 170 degrees Fahrenheit +/- 10 degrees. The next most important thing you’ll want to know is that while you can manage it without a timer, some type of timer makes things exponentially smoother. So here are the steps to poaching an egg.

1. Fill a large pan with at least three inches of water. This makes it deep enough to completely cover the egg and ensures that the egg won’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Also make it a wide enough pan that you can have more than one egg in there but that they won’t be touching. Non-stick also works well here.
2. Crack you egg into a small bowl or ramekin before adding to the hot water. This avoids broken yolks.
3. Bring the water in the pan to a boil and then reduce the heat. Using a thermometer, let the water come to the proper temperature before adding the eggs. You can also add a couple of teaspoons of vinegar to the water. This will cause the egg white to congeal faster and help keep the white from becoming a veil of protein drifting away from the yolk.
4. Add the eggs to the water by slipping the edge of the bowl or ramekin about 1/2 inch below the surface of the water and then pouring the egg in. Do not disturb the eggs once they are in the water.
5. Set your timer for three minutes. This will produce a medium firm egg yolk. Adjust the cooking time accordingly if you like them runnier or firmer. More than five minutes though and you might as well hard cook them right in the shell.
6. Remove from teh water with a slotted spoon. Let then drain for a couple of seconds and then plate.

Eggs From the Sea

4 English Muffins
8 eggs
8 oz sliced Nova Lox
2 oz salmon caviar
Prepared Hollandaise Sauce

Toast the English Muffins and place two on each plate. Divide the Nova Lox and place a layer on each English Muffin. Poach the eggs in batches and place one poached egg on each Nova covered muffin. Spoon the hollandaise sauce over the Egg and place a dollop of salmon caviar on each one. Serve immediately.