I'm a big fan of cooking, although, for the majority of the time, I tend to keep it simple. I like fresh ingredients, in season, if possible. You should be able to get a mortar and pestle from most homeware shops, I would have thought. I've had a bash at pesto myself before and it wasn't wonderfully successful. Make sure you use fresh herbs (you can get basil plants in all supermarkets) and I'd recommend grana padano over parmesan (parmesan's a bit harsh in those sort of quantities).

My specialities (!) are quite simple things like lasagnes and chillis, although, when I'm feeling a bit more adventurous, I do like to cook different meats. I used to work on a butchers stall, so I'm quite big on good cuts of meat at the right time.

My recommendation: marmelade pork chops. There are a tonne of recipes out there for it, but I like the glaze to be 2/3 marmelade (bitter) to 1/3 soy sauce.

The main thing is jsut experimenting, I think. Let me know how those chicken dishes go, I might be stealing those recipes from you.