Eat This, Not That...Definitely Not That!

It is a seemingly right of passage for teenagers and kids to do stupid things.  When I was younger, kids were playing the choking game where you would choke yourself until you passed out.  Kids on the East Coast sometimes would go "ice clamper hoppin" which is as dangerous as it sounds.  

You may be asking what the heck  "ice clamper" means.  According to the Urban Dictionary, an Ice Clamper is a Cape Breton slang term for an iceberg.  That literally is the only thing that came up when I Google'd "ice clamper."  An "ice clamper" is kind of similar to an iceberg, but not the same thing.  In the Sydney Harbour, large chunks of broken up ice from the ocean will float into the harbour, and then back out of the harbour, a couple of times before spring.  They are more like thick slabs of sea-ice.  Most are flat on the top.  They aren't really like an iceberg at all.  There is an old wives tale that after the second coming of the clampers, Spring is right around the corner.        

Basically, when the "ice clampers" come into the harbour, some locals (mostly teenagers) will jump from clamper to clamper, hence the "ice clamper hoppin".  They are literally jumping from one chunk of ice to the other, with the cold, dark Atlantic ocean underneath.  Slip off a "clamper" and you are in the icy cold water.  It's super dangerous and there have been lots of people hurt over the years doing this.  KIDS and ADULTS don't jump on ice clampers!!  I feel like I may need to make that last sentence neon and flashing.  It's an awful pastime, don't do it.

The last couple of weeks I started to hear about kids and young adults who have been partaking in the stupidest "challenge" I have ever heard, biting into laundry pods.  At first, I didn't believe that it was possibly true.  Why would anyone in their right mind want to put any type of soap into your mouth?  I almost die when I get a bit of dish soap in my mouth accidentally. Wasn't washing your mouth out with soap a form of punishment in the past?  I am positive that child services would be called if a kid's parents tried to wash their mouth out with soap nowadays, but now they are doing it themselves.

I would like to know who came up with this challenge.  Who out there thought, "Hey I bet it would be fun to bite into a laundry pod that is filled with soap, bleach, softening liquid."  Then who decided it would be fun to video people taking the challenge.  People obviously don't have enough brain cells to understand the gravity of taking part in this challenge.  Do parents not warn their kids about poisonous substances?  PSA: everyone needs to watch this old school Canadian video with your kids.

I used to have a couple of healthy eating book that I loved called "Eat This, Not That" which had suggestions on foods not to eat, and ones to substitute them with to eat healthier.  Watching a video about the "tide pod challenge" by the Prince Edward Island police officer, I got thinking about the "Eat This, Not That" books.  I kind of feel that we need an "Eat This, Not That...Definitely Not That" to give to kids in elementary school.  A couple of pages that come to mind...

It saddens me that as a society as advanced as we have become, that we actually have to have these conversations.  Kids can figure out how to use an ipad at less than a year old, yet we have to tell them not to eat chemical filled laundry pods.

Please please please talk to your kids about eating laundry pods, and the dangers of these "online challenges."

That is all...

Jen

Book Review: "Where I Belong" by Alan Doyle

I am not going to lie, it's been a long, long time since I have read a book for pleasure.  I read stuff at work all day, and then read through a lot of Internet stuff after work, and then some evenings I am reading through resumes.  I think you get where I am going, reading for pleasure after reading all day every day isn't the top priority.

In November, I downloaded a Kindle Version of "Where I Belong" by Alan Doyle, one of my favorite Canadian singers, and the former lead singer of Great Big Sea, one of my favorite bands of all time.  I thought it would be prudent to read this book because Alan Doyle was going to be the artist on the CP Holiday Train this year. 

The CP Holiday train rolls through our little town every year.  Typically my husband, who is a huge train fan, is working during the event.  This year he was going to be home!  We decided that we had to attend and that we would go to the event in Savona, BC and then jump in the car and drive to Ashcroft, about 30 minutes away.  

The Savona show was amazing!  Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Band started with a Christmas Tune, and then threw in a couple of Great Big Sea songs!  I am pretty sure I was the only one in the crowd that knew the Great Big Sea songs.  When the show was over, we jumped in the car and drove the 30 minutes to Ashcroft.  We thought we would have tons of time to stop and grab a coffee, but we just made it at the same time as the train.

The Ashcroft show started out with one of the most beautiful renditions of Oh Holy Night by Corey Tettford.  It was magical.  The setlist for the Ashcroft show was much longer and different than the Savona show. One of my favorite East Coast Christmas Carols, "I'll Be There Christmas Eve" was on the setlist.  I an 100% sure that not one other person knew this song.  It brought me back to listening to this song at my grandparents during the Christmas season.  The set had some amazing Great Big Sea tunes, a couple of traditional tunes and a couple of mainstream carols.  

After seeing Mr. Doyle twice in one night, and to get to share the CP Holiday Train with my husband, and experiencing the magic of the train, I knew this was one of the highlights of my year!  The next day I started down a deep spiral of Great Big Sea videos on YouTube!  I also started finally broke into the book.  I very quickly remembered why I didn't read for pleasure a lot, I just don't have time.  I also remembered how much I like getting lost in a book.

"Where I Belong" starts out with a Boy standing on a bridge, contemplating his life in small-town Newfoundland. This book takes you through the early life of this boy, his strong family ties, his musical roots, his passion for hockey, and his antics around the fishing docks.  

This book brought me back to growing up in a small house in a tiny community.  Being brought up on homemade bread and gravy, and the love of his family, this boy would become a musical prodigy in his hometown and across the country.  

Alan's stories of the antics of his buddies working on the dock cutting cod tounges were hilarious.  I can vividly imagine him getting thrown into the water playing ball hockey.  His longing to meet the girls from the Protestant side of the bridge, as all of the girls on the Catholic side were his cousins made me chuckle.   This is a common plight of youngsters in small towns on the East Coast.  I typically avoided any boys in my town because there was a pretty decent chance they were related to us somehow.

This story is written in a way that captures the audience and makes you want to come back for more.  As an East Coaster displaced on the West Coast, it filled my hear with joy to read.  I couldn't get enough of the book and knew I had to get Alan's next book so I could read it over the Chrismas season.  

You need to get yourself a copy of this book!

5 Stars!

PS there is an affiliate link below if you want to purchase a copy on Amazon.

Jen

Jen Learned How to Make Seafood Chowder “aka West Coasters think this is the best chowder ever”

Jen Learned How to Make Seafood Chowder “aka West Coasters think this is the best chowder ever”

I was looking for a family recipe for Seafood Chowder. My family members make killer chowder. One side makes a thicker chowder that sticks to your ribs. One small bowl and you are stuffed. The other side makes a thinner chowder which is equally delicious. I decided I wanted to try something in between. After being schooled by my uncle on how he generally makes his (he has no recipe), reading my aunt's recipe for the thicker chowder, and doing a bit of research on the “Cape Breton Cook Book” Facebook group, I thought I had a good grasp on how to make a chowder.

I made a test batch with some less expensive seafood, tested it out on my ever-willing Husband and the Quality Control tester (the fluffy black Lab), and it was a hit. I was having some neighbours over for a get together a couple of days later, when I would make the chowder again, only with what I would consider traditional seafood chowder ingredients, lobster, scallops, clams and shrimp. Shrimp is probably the least traditional, but we like shrimp. I couldn’t find any good mussels otherwise I would have added those as well.

Servings: 24

Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients:
5 Cooked Lobster (tails and claw meat cut into bite size pieces)
1 Large Bag of Shrimp (cooked, peeled, tail off)
30-40 Scallops (cut into bite size pieces)
2 cans of Baby Oysters
8 Cups Water
10 Large Carrots
4 Stalks of Celery
1 Large Onion
10 Medium Potatoes
1 cup Water
2 TBSP Old Bay Seasoning
2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Pepper
1.5 L Coffee Cream (10%)
1.5 cup plus ¼ cup Butter (use real salted butter…don’t substitute margarine)
1 cup dried potato flakes buttery flavored (don’t get a flavored one)…(ps this is the secret ingredient)

Fry the Lobster:
Add cooked lobster and ¼ cup butter into hot pan.
Fry lobster in the butter for about 5 minutes.
Butter will turn a bit red, and lobster will turn an orange color.
Taste test lobster, but don’t eat it all!
Put aside.

Veggies:
Peel carrots
Dice carrots and onions into small pieces
Slice celery thinly
Add carrots, onions, celery and 1.5 cups of butter to a large stock pot
This will be the pot you will make the chowder in so make sure it’s large enough (like this one)
Turn burner to between high and medium
Carefully cook the carrots, onions and celery until they are soft (about 20 minutes)
Make sure you stir often so they don’t burn to the bottom

Potatoes:
Peel potatoes
Cut into bite size pieces
Put in microwave proof bowl with 1 cup water
Cover with saran wrap
Cook in microwave on high for 15 minutes or until potatoes are soft
Put aside

Seafood Stock:
Boil 8 cups water in a separate pot
Add scallops, shrimp and drained oysters
Add 1 TBSP of Old Bay Seasoning
Boil for 20 minutes

Putting it all together:

Once the veggies have become soft you are ready to start assembling the chowder
You will need a million spoons to taste test

Turn the burner to medium
Carefully remove the seafood from the stock and add to the large pot with the veggies
Add the fried lobster
Add the cooked potatoes (with cooking liquid, which will aid in thickening)
Carefully add the stock from the seafood to the pot (the stock should bring the liquid about up to the top of the other ingredients).
Add 1 TBSP of Old Bay seasoning
Add Salt & Pepper
Let this come to a boil, stirring often to ensure it doesn’t burn to bottom
Let boil for about 10 minutes
Taste test the broth. It should be flavorful, not overly salty or peppery.
Add more salt, pepper or old bay to taste.
This is where I use some of the million spoons.

About 5 minutes before you are ready to serve, add coffee cream to a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes until lukewarm (this is a super important step, if you add the cream in cold it will separate).

Add the warmed coffee cream to the stock
Taste again, add more spices if needed
Add 1 cup of flaked potatoes to thicken the broth

Enjoy with some home-made bread, rolls or biscuits
Eat within a couple of days
Delicious the next day!

Welcome 2018!

I must admit, 2017 wasn't my year, as I am sure it wasn't a lot of people's favorite year.  It was full of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, and just plain craziness. 

For me it started out with a major surgery to fix an issue that almost killed me the summer prior.  This surgery was badly needed and forced me to slow down for the two month recovery. 

Less than a month after, the best part of 2017 happened.  Our first nephew was born!  He is the sweetest little boy you could ever meet.  He is so handsome that people stop in their tracks to see him.  We are blessed to have him in our lives and so lucky he is only a 5ish hour drive away.

While I was recovering from surgery, I ended up joining an online Health & Beauty company that blew up in popularity.  I instantly had a huge group of people join my team, was making a bunch of money, and the products were flying off the shelf.  This business was starting to take over my life.  Ever waking second was spent trying to ensure my team was learning, I was hitting my sales targets, and that customers were satisfied with their product.  This was fine for the first couple of months, because I wasn't working my regular job.  Once I went back to work, I was struggling more and more to keep up.  The leadership of the team I was on was changing processes and ways of doing things on almost a daily basis.  To be honest I just couldn't keep up.  This same leadership was also asking more and more of the "leaders" and some of the asks were against my beliefs and business acumen.  I eventually fell out of love with the leadership, starting hating ever second of being involved with the company, but still loved the products.  I made a decision that I no longer wanted to be associated with the leadership team I was associated with and that I would stop selling for this company.  The moment I made this decision a huge weight was lifted, that I feel was holding me down.  Yes I gave up a legitimate source of additional income, and a team that had massive potential, but to me, it just wasn't worth it.  People think I am crazy for giving that up (including a trip to South Africa), but I have zero regrets.

The summer of 2017 started off great.  I headed to our annual Silver Icing conference in Vancouver at the beautiful River Rock Casino.  It was a BLAST as always. Who wouldn't love to hang out with 100 of your "online BFF's" for the weekend, improving your business skills and having way too much fun.  These weekends are so refreshing and soul fulfilling. This one did not disappoint.

These conferences usually start on Friday and end on Saturday night.  During the Friday session, I had checked my Facebook page.  I am starting to see some posts that a wildfire had started and burned through a community that is only 30 minutes and about 20k from my house.  Within a short amount of time, it devastated two communities.  By the grace of God, and the hard work of Firefighters, the fire did not burn the whole town of Ashcroft and Cache Creek down.  The fire was spreading fast, and new ones had started in numerous areas north.  One of my fellow stylists is from Williams Lake area and her neighbourhood is on evacuation alert.  One of the other stylist got a call from her husband who was at a family cabin in the area, and he was under alert.  I had no idea what I would see when I got home from the conference.

Upon driving from Vancouver to Kamloops, I saw a few smoky areas but nothing too bad.  As I got closer to my neighbourhood, I could start to see the smoke.  When I got to the police checkstop which was just down the road from my house, they asked me where I was going.  I explained I lived in the neighbourhood just down the highway and we were not under evacuation. They let me through with no issues.  As I got home, the smoke in the air and the dryness of the air caught me off guard.  When I left a couple of days earlier, there was still green leaves on my one scraggly tree.  Now they were crispy and brown.  The bunch grass was also crispy and looked like hay.  There was smoke plumes that I could see in the distance. 

My husband had come home early from work and was asleep when I got home.  He had worked a night shift the night before so he was exhausted.  I honestly turned it into panic mode.  I ran around the house like a mad person gathering everything that I thought we would need to take if we got evacuated.  I grabbed house docs, jewelry, pictures, and anything sentimental.  I piled it all in front of our main door.  When my husband got up we figured out a plan of attack.  We had to figure out a place to store his old vehicle which we had just took to our property a couple of weeks before.  We also had to pack up our cargo trailer and put it somewhere.  Luckily two of our friends in Kamloops had room for us to store them for a bit of time.  We also prepped our property by cutting down weeds around our house and shop.  We moved anything that could easily catch on fire away from the structures.  My vehicle was packed with the most important stuff including a go-bag.  We decided we would put the dog in doggy daycare while I was at work so that we could get to her quickly if there was an evacuation.

A week or so went by and it seemed like the fire wasn't coming much closer to our place.  Upon coming home from work one Friday there was a very weird looking plume of smoke coming from the West, and it looked like an area north of Cache Creek was on fire.  My neighbour had come over and we watched the fire for awhile.  The smoke cloud was getting bigger and bigger.  My neighbour left to pack up some stuff, and I got some stuff ready just in case.  I went to bed that night a bit worried.  I sleep with ear plugs in, which I really need to give up. 

At 6am the next morning, my neighbour was banging on my bedroom door.  Apparently the night before the cops had banged on my door, but I didn't hear them. They had just came to her house to tell her we were on evacuation notification.  They had said there was no answer at my door but she knew I was home.  About 30 minutes later a copy came back down the back road and stopped at my back gate.  I could see him coming so I went out to the gate to chat with him.  He told me that we were on notification as a precaution.  That was enough for me, I decided to head out to my relatives in Vernon to spend a couple of days.  I grabbed my work computer on the way through Kamloops so I could work from home.

This cycle went on for the entire summer...on notification, head to Vernon, come back a couple days later.  At one point my neighbours across the highway (1500ft away from us) were actually evacuated, while we were still on notification. That two lane highway road is really going to stop that fire from crossing! 

By mid August, the fire was still wreaking havoc. It had been on again off again creeping towards our area.  Most days were pretty smoky.  One day I was at my friends in Kamloops for a get together.  I had put the dog in doggy daycare for the evening and picked her up before heading home.  I was getting updates from twitter that night that they were loosing the battle in an area quite north of our place.  It was a very clear night, so I could see a bit of an orange glow on the way home above the wooded area that they were fighting that night.  To my surprise when I got home, it was actually clear.  That was the first clear night in weeks and weeks.  As I drove into my neighbourhood and down the driveway, I could see spots of flames in the hill about 10km away.  This was the first time I could actually see the flames and it was terrifying. I watched from my deck for about an hour and could see numerous areas that had small orange areas, and I could see the odd tree candling on the hillside.

The fire situation went on until the end of August.  For a couple of weeks we had the Firefighter Camp just down the road.  I may have had to stop in the store next door for cool summer treats more than usual for those two weeks!  One day we had a pretty good rainfall which really helped the situation.  I was never so happy to see rain. I may have shed a few tears!

Thankfully we had an uneventful Fall season, and a decent start to winter!  Our furnace was causing issues around Christmas, and is thankfully pumping heat right now!  We ended the Christmas season with a lovely get together with neighbours at our house.  It was a good old fashion blizzard, but we still had a house full of neighbours, an amazing seafood chowder (recipe to come in the next post) and lovely conversation! 

I will be starting to blog more this year.  I find it a good way to relax, I just need to find more time to actually write.

I hope you all had an amazing 2017.  I know that 2018 will be amazing!

Jen

Preparing for a Disaster

After growing up on the East Coast in a small, but pretty densely populated area, and then living in a cookie cutter neighbourhood in Fort McMurray, I have always lived close to people and retail establishments.  Now, we live in the "boonies" with very little retail around us and much more remote that I am used to.  We get our water by well.  I had no idea when we moved that if you loose power, you have no running water.

The first time we lost power, I woke up in the morning to my cell phone alarm, and to a semi-bright room (we have tons of windows).  I quickly realized that the power was out when my alarm clock wasn't on.  I very quickly realized that no power meant no water to shower.  It also means that you only get one flush out of every toilet.  I think I had maybe 1 bottle of water in the house as we aren't a family that normally drinks bottled water.  Luckily we have 3 toilets in the house so I knew I wouldn't be in trouble bathroom wise.  I could not however take a shower.

Since I had no water or power at home, I got as freshed up as I could with a bottle of water, I headed to town an hour early, hoping there was power there.  Luckily there was and I was able to stop in to a Cora's breakfast to kill some time and to get something to eat.

I realized at that point that we needed to do something to ensure that we are prepared if some sort of disaster was to happen, or if we lost power again.  My husband ended up buying a light tower which he is going to use for a home made generator, which is going to be set up eventually.

That day after work, stopped into a Safeway and grabbed 6 gallon jugs full of water.  This water is not for drinking, it's for flushing toilets.  I put two jugs of water near the three bathrooms in the house.  If the power does go out again, at least we would have water to flush the toilets.  Recently we started collecting 4L jugs from milk etc, and have been cleaning them and filling them with water to use for flushing when we do loose power.

I have also started collecting items for an emergency preparedness kit in case we ever hit a natural disaster.  Having many friends and family who experienced the devastating Fort McMurray forest fire in 2016, I have been thinking about this more and more.  I have been slowly starting to build a stockpile of stuff and build a mobile pack.

So far I have collected the following:

Drinking Water - They say you need two liters of water per person per day.  Since there are two of us and a pup, we need 4 500ml bottles per day each, or 12 per day.  They say you need to be prepared for 72 hours, so I have 48 pack of water from Costco in my basement at all times to make sure we have enough.  You can also get "emergency rations" of water, which look a bit more "packable" than bottles, but are much more expensive.  Check them out here: Datrex Emergency Survival Water Pouch, Pack of 64, 125ml.

Life Straw - I saw this product in quite a few blog posts about emergency preparedness.  It's basically a straw with a filter in it.  They say you can drink water out of a puddle with it and it will be safe.  I will pass on that unless it's a doomsday situation.  I purchased two of these so that we each have one.  They will be going into our mobile kit so that we have them on the go.  You can check out the Life Straw here: LifeStraw Personal Water Filter.

So far that is it for the emergency kit.  My goal is to find something to put all of this stuff in, and to buy a new product for the stash every paycheque.

What kinds of things do you have in your emergency kit?

Jen
xoxo

What is a Storm Glass?

My Mom and Dad live on the East Coast of Canada, in a small town on Cape Breton Island.  The area is a storm magnet with blustery winter snow storms, and hold on to your hat hurricanes.  My parents purchased a contraption called a "Storm Glass".  We got the question "What is a Storm Glass?" about 10 times since Christmas so I thought I would write a blog post explaining what it is.

A "Storm Glass" is technically a "Weather based Barometer", a tool that measures atmospheric pressure.  It works based on the barometric air pressure, and predicts when a storm is a brewin'.  The glass is filled half way up with a colored water.  When the air pressure is low, the water will rise up the spout of the glass, while higher air pressure drop the water down the spout.

According to Wikipedia:

Water-based barometersEdit

The weather ball barometer consists of a glass container with a sealed body, half filled with water. A narrow spout connects to the body below the water level and rises above the water level. The narrow spout is open to the atmosphere. When the air pressure is lower than it was at the time the body was sealed, the water level in the spout will rise above the water level in the body; when the air pressure is higher, the water level in the spout will drop below the water level in the body. A variation of this type of barometer can be easily made at home.^[11]

The concept that decreasing atmospheric pressure predicts stormy weather, postulated by Lucien Vidi, provides the theoretical basis for a weather prediction device called a "weather glass" or a "Goethe barometer" (named for Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the renowned German writer and polymath who developed a simple but effective weather ball barometer using the principles developed by Torricelli). The French name, le baromètre Liègeois, is used by some English speakers.^[9] This name reflects the origins of many early weather glasses - the glass blowers of Liège, Belgium.^[9][10]

My parents bought all of the kids a Storm Glass for Christmas.  I set mine up, following the instructions, using green liquid.  Over the past couple of weeks I have noticed the water going up and down the spout quite often.  I live in a small town outside of Kamloops, BC, smack dab in the middle of a bunch of mountains (not the huge type like in the Rockies), with a huge lake close by and a large river running about 200 feet from our house.  We often get bizarre weather, like today when the weather prediction was for balmy plus 6 and wind of 15 km/hr.  We ended up with a beautiful temperature, and frightening wind in the 80 km/hr range.  I'm not sure why they can not predict the wind properly here, but you often need to add 50 km/hr to the prediction.  When I woke up this morning, my Storm Glass water had risen so high that it was dripping out of the spout.  The picture at the top of this blog post is from this morning.

New Years Eve we had some friends over for the night and it was supposed to snow according to the weather network.  Sure enough the Storm Glass in the morning was low in the spout, and by the afternoon it was creeping up the spout.  By the time late afternoon had come, the snow had started and the spout had creeped to the top of the spout..

There are many different styles of Storm Glass out there, with the popular one in my family being one similar to this one from Amazon.com.  It's quite inexpensive, but it really does work!  If you are going to purchase one, make sure you have some food coloring at home to add in to the water.

Jen 

xoxo

Lobster Eggs Benedict

My family usually goes a little bit overboard on the number of Lobster that they buy, in fact, my dad bought 24 of them a couple of days before Christmas, to feed 7 of us who actually eat the critters. Quick math tells you that there may be a ton of leftovers.  After having lobster for two dinner sittings ("supper" for non-east coasters), I was contemplating what we could do with the leftovers lobster.

I was pretty sure that none of my family had ever tried Eggs Benedict before, and that Lobster Eggs Benedict would be AMAZING!  While we ran around to pick a couple of things up on Christmas Eve, I stopped in to the grocery store to get the couple of things that Mom didn't have in stock, Hollandaise Sauce Mix and English Muffins.

Christmas morning we got up and had a quick snack which happened to be homemade raisin bread, our favorite.  We then opened the mountain of presents that was under the tree...literally you couldn't sit anywhere in the room.  My Sister and Brother-in-Law then went up to his parents house to open gifts with his family, and missed the amazing breakfast that was to come.

My Grandfather's favorite way to eat Lobster was to fry it in a little bit of butter, which is also my favorite.  It does not take much butter and it does not take long, but it turns the lobster into even more of a delicacy.  We decided that the Lobster for the Eggs Benedict would be best fried.

We hot an assembly line going, I was on Lobster and Hollandaise Sauce duty, Da was on Poached Egg duty, and my brother Chris was none to impressed to be on Toasted English Muffin duty.  It really goes quite quickly when three people are working on breakfast.


Nova Scotia Lobster Eggs Benedict Recipe

Yield: 6 portions

Ingredients:
2 lbs                       Cooked, Shelled and Diced Nova Scotia Lobster
2 packages             Knorr Hollandaise Sauce Mix (this is the best brand)
1 cup + 2 TBSP     Butter
2 cups                    Milk
6 pack                    Plain English Muffins
1 dozen                  Eggs
1 TBSP                  White Vinegar
8 cups                    Water

• In a medium sized pot, prepare Hollandaise Sauce following directions on package, set aside.
• In a frying pan, melt the 2 TBSP of butter until sizzling, then add in the cooked, diced lobster, stirring occasionally.
• Toast English Muffins to a medium toast, not too dark or they will be hard to cut.
• In another shallow frying pan, add in the 8 cups of water and 1 TBSP white vinegar, heating on high until rapidly boiling.  Turn hear down to medium.
• Carefully crack each egg into a dish, preferably with a pouring spout (I love these ones that I got from my brother for Christmas last year), and then carefully drop each egg into the water.  
• Eggs need to cook for just a few minutes, until the whites have somewhat solidified, but the yolks are still runny.  
• Assembly needs to happen very quickly so that your eggs don't get over cooked.  Gather your plates, adding two halves of an english muffin, cut side up.  Spoon on a heaping serving of the fried lobster (it's never too much).  
• Gently spoon your eggs out of the water, tipping them a little bit to get the excess water off.  Add an egg on top of each mound of lobster.
• Spoon approximately 2 TBSP of Hollandaise Sauce on top of each egg.
• Sit down with your family and enjoy!

We learned some lessons while making this Christmas Morning breakfast of champions!

• Hollandaise Sauce is really just breakfast gravy.
• Nova Scotians aren't as familiar with Hollandaise Sauce.
• "Holiday" sauce isn't just available during the Holidays, it's an all year treasure.
• If someone says "Oh I'll just try a bit of yours, I'm not hungry" make them their own, because after one bite of yours,  and you will end up having to share.
• Add a side of fruit, or something tart to cut the heaviness of this dish.

This is what the Knorr Hollandaise Sauce looks like!

This is how my Dad ate his, disassembled.  He wasn't sure he would like the Hollandaise so he didn't want to ruin the lobster.

It turns out that my family did like Hollandaise sauce, and fought over the couple of spoonfuls that were left over breakfast the next day.

I hope you enjoyed learning how to make Lobster Eggs Benedict!

Jen
xoxo