Apricot Canapes

I made these tasty little bites for an appetizer/cocktail party last weekend and they were a hit!

Even better? They were a breeze to put together and a nice option for guests on a gluten-free diet.

apricot canapes

Apricot Canapes

Prep time: 10–15 minutes
Total time: 10–15 minutes

Ingredients

dried apricots

goat cheese (chèvre)

freshly ground pepper

pistachios, shelled and roughly chopped

honey

kosher salt

Directions

1. Top dried apricots with about a ½ teaspoon of cheese and sprinkle with ground pepper. Sprinkle with pistachios and drizzle with honey. Sprinkle with salt, to taste. (Whole lotta sprinklin' going on.)

It doesn't get much easier than that and it's an excellent recipe for little helping hands in the kitchen.

I found the original recipe here, but I cannot digest blue cheese so I switched it out for goat cheese and chose to add the pepper earlier for greater stickability. My pistachios were unsalted, so if you're working with salted nuts, you may want to skip the kosher salt at the end.

The Twinkie Defense

Scoob has been whining about the end of Twinkies like its the end of the world. Twinkies were never my thing, so I'm having a hard time understanding the angst. Sure, I enjoy a Ding Dong or Ho-Ho now and again, but I honestly cannot remember the last time I had one or the other.

Then last night, someone on Facebook reminded me Hostess made the fruit and pudding pies, too. Okay. Shit just got real. Other kids may have had Twinkies in their lunch boxes, but my mom packed the fruit pies in mine.

I distinctly remember grocery shopping with her and coming up to the fruit pies and she would let me pick out the favors I wanted--apple, lemon, and (of course) chocolate pudding were my favorites. I remember how I had to be careful when eating the blackberry ones, because the filling had a way of gooshing out whet you bit into it, and the blackberry filling would stain whatever it fell on. I remember the disappointment of finding a smooshed pie in my lunchbox. And I remember eating it anyway.

And it wasn't just grade school. I remember eating Hostess fruit pies well into high school and even after, though with less frequency. I remember buying and packing them for camping trips, and yes, they usually got smooshed then, too.

I haven't rushed out to the stores to buy up the last few on the shelves, but if I do happen to spot one, I might be tempted to place it in my cart for nostalgia's sake. However, I am reading that psychologists are preparing for Twinkie Withdrawal Syndrome (TWS).  "It sounds like a joke, but it’s real," said Dr. Virginia Albertson of North Carolina. (North Carolina. Figures.) And that police departments in many cities are preparing for a riots at 7-11s and other delicatessens.  (Did they really just call 7-11 a delicatessen? Clearly, this is not a reputable source.)

Anyhow, back to Scoob and his Twinkies. So, this morning Scoob was lamenting over how all the stores are sold out and Twinkies are now a collectors item selling for $300/box. And he's just crushed that he'll never have another. I reminded him that Hostess will be selling off its products and recipes, so Twinkies are not gone forever. "But they just won't be the same," he said.

Now he's totally stoked because he just bought 2 boxes online (at regular price). Me, I'm now looking at a future where his perfectly preserved Twinkies share shelf space in my pantry with his Peeps that are already several years old.

Bo Ssam—Korean-style slow-roasted pork

Or, as I call it, Mind Control Pork.

I came across this article about Bo Ssam in the NYTimes—the picture alone convinced me I would need to try this recipe, but then I read the article. The recipe is the creation of David Chang, chef and owner of Momofuku in NYC where it sells for $200 and feeds 6–10 people. (I get this on the table for less than $20.) And get this:

[R]ecipes like Chang’s bo ssam are a godsend. They make any cook appear to be better than he or she really is, elevating average kitchen skills into something that approaches alchemy. Tell no one how easy this all turns out to be, though. Simply cook the food and serve it and watch as those at your table devour the meat in a kind of trance.

Did you catch that bit about a trance? That's why I call it Mind Control Pork. The pork roast itself is delicious, but the salty/sweet bark that forms on the outside is amazing! If there's an unpleasant task on the Honey-Do list, or the list is getting particularly long, I just tell Scoob I'm making this for dinner and suddenly things start getting done.

In fact, Scoob prefers it to the kalua pig that he makes (which is also amazing and simple). Coming from him, that's saying something.

I've made this a few times now, and it just seems to get better each time. The last time I made it, I even invited neighbors over for dinner (that's how confident I am with this easy recipe), and now it's being requested whenever we're the host house for supper club.

I've made a few adjustments to the original recipe—I found it unclear at one point and reduced the oven temperature and increased the time for the final step in the oven (500° just filled the house with too much smoke—extremely unpleasant, especially if you're expected guests). The recipe also recommends oysters as an accompaniment, but I didn't go there with it.

Feeling saucy?

The recipe includes directions for the accompanying sauces. I love the ginger-scallion sauce. Even though it sounds like an odd combination, I urge you to try it. Scoob refuses to try it because he hates onions—I don't care for a lot of onion either, but this stuff is addictive! Oh well, more for me! (I now make this sauce fairly regularly to go with noodles and pot stickers, too.)

Neither one of us really cared for the ssam sauce (pictured in the middle, above), so I usually skip this now and just set out some chili paste. And even though I do like kimchi (in the back, pictured above), I don't really care for the brand we have available locally. Scoob likes it though, so he gets the kimchi while I get the ginger-scallion sauce.

Bo Ssam

Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: Overnight + 6½–7½ hours cook time (mostly hands-off)

INGREDIENTS
Pork Butt

1 whole bone-in pork butt or picnic ham (8 to 10 pounds)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon kosher salt

7 tablespoons brown sugar

Ginger-Scallion Sauce

2½ cups thinly sliced scallions, both green and white parts

½ cup peeled, minced fresh ginger

¼ cup neutral oil (like grapeseed)

1½ teaspoons light soy sauce

1 scant teaspoon sherry vinegar

½ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Accompaniments

2 cups plain white rice, cooked

3 heads bibb lettuce (we used Romaine), leaves separated, washed and dried

Kimchi

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the pork in a large, shallow bowl. Mix the white sugar and 1 cup of the salt together in another bowl, then rub the mixture all over the meat. (I know it sounds like a lot of salt, but you do rinse it off later. I've found ½ cup each white sugar and salt to be fine on a 6-pound pork butt.) Cover it with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, or overnight.




The morning after.



2. When you’re ready to cook, heat oven to 300°. Remove pork from refrigerator and discard any juices and rinse off any excess salt and sugar. (The original recipe did not call for rinsing, and my first try at this recipe was extremely salty.) Place the pork in a roasting pan .




Into the oven.



3. Cook for approximately 6 hours, after the first hour, baste hourly with pan juices. Once the roast collapses (somewhere around 200° internal temperature) and yields easily to the tines of a fork, you may remove the meat from the oven and allow it to rest for up to an hour.




Somewhere around the 4 hour mark.



4. You can make the ginger-scallion sauce while the roast rests, but I've found I like the taste even more after it has had a chance to meld—I usually make mine when I put the roast in the oven. In a large bowl, combine the scallions with the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and taste, adding salt if needed.




Ginger-scallion sauce



5. While the roast rests, prepare the rice, wash lettuce, and set out the sauces.


6. When your accompaniments are prepared and you are ready to serve the food, turn oven to 400°. (As I mentioned earlier, 500°, as called for in the original recipe, produced way too much smoke in the house. I may try this at 450° next time, but 400° did work, although it took a bit longer. You may want to wait on setting out your rice so it doesn't get cold.) In a small bowl, stir together the remaining tablespoon of salt with the brown sugar. Rub this mixture all over the cooked pork and spoon some of the pan juices over the top being careful not to rinse off the rub. (I found spooning some juices onto the roast at this point helped the sugar form more of a glaze-crust instead of the thicker, more sugar-granular crust I experienced the first couple tries with this recipe.) Place in oven for approximately 15–20 minutes, or until a dark caramel crust has developed on the meat. Serve hot, with the accompaniments.

Going down in a glaze of glory—yes, it is Bon Jovi-worthy

Scoop some rice on your lettuce, layer on some pork,
and top with the sauce of your choice.

Leftovers, if you're lucky enough to have them, are delicious as repeats, and when you get down to the nubbins, they make an awesome fried rice. If it's just the two of us, a 4–5 pound pork shoulder easily feeds us for several days (and no one complains about getting tired of it!).

Bo ssam pork fried rice

On Working and Relationships

I keep telling myself I am going to blog more frequently, even if it's just small posts, and I keep not doing it. I think part of the problem is that when I write here, I like to write uninterrupted. (I would also say without distraction, but I am so easily distracted it never happens that way.)

Like right now, I am writing but also monitoring file transfers and the time tracking web-based software I use for billing. The time tracker has been having some issues post-Sandy since their data center is in NYC and I am worried I may lose the tracked hours and invoices already in their system. But the point is, it's difficult for me to get lost in the writing when there's something else going on that I must monitor.

So what's going on here? Well, clearly, I am still getting freelance work (hence the file transfers I am watching) and I'm averaging 15–20 hours/week with that. Sometimes I out earn my unemployment check (which is awesome!) and sometimes I don't, and believe me, I am incredibly thankful that that particular safety net is there to help as we get back on our feet.

Scoob has started freelancing with me. He has been meeting lots of people at the networking groups he has been going to, and many of them want consulting work done on their websites. And despite my concerns about working together, we have now worked on a couple of projects together. We've been doing this pro bono right now to get the word out, but he does have a lead on a paying client.

I am not totally sold on this working arrangement—when I said he could use the company I set up to do freelancing under, I did not mean I would be taking on the additional work myself. So far I do not like how the division of labor is falling out. He finds the client, does an initial review of their website, then asks me to review the site, and then I get stuck writing up our findings and recommendations. I do not mind looking at the websites and giving a second opinion on specific things or even proofreading his write ups, but doing a complete second review of the sites and putting together the write ups is time consuming, and since he's doing the work for free right now, it takes away from time I could be billing on other projects.

If he wants to do this, he needs to do the whole thing. I am more than willing to help him, but it just rubs me the wrong way when he dumps the work he doesn't want to do in my lap. His reason is always "because you're better at it." An that may be true in some instances, but that doesn't mean I want to do it. And, he needs to start tracking the time he spends on these projects so he can figure out what to charge when the time comes. So far he hasn't been willing to, or he "forgets".

I'm seriously about to play the Owner card with him and lay down the rules and expectations, and that is exactly what I wanted to avoid. But it seems pretty clear to me that he is going to continue to take advantage of the situation unless I do. I've even offered to file the paperwork to make him a co-owner or even just turn the business over to him—if he wants to run it his way, then he needs to be in charge.

That, and I am interviewing for the position in New Jersey I posted about last time. I ended up interviewing with a VP and then a Senior VP the day after that post, and had an interview with one of their program managers this last Wednesday. I'm currently scheduling interviews with their production managers in India as the next step. Scoob and friends are convinced I have the job as long as I don't lose my mind and start dropping f-bombs during the interviews.

And, as I have been pointing out to Scoob, this is even more reason for him to step up on the freelance side, because if (when) I get this job, I won't be here to do the write ups, track the time, meet with the clients, or send out the invoices for him. Then he talks about hiring someone to do that work and I just have to keep telling him I did not want this. I never wanted to "build" a company or hire employees; I simply wanted a business name to conduct my freelance work under. If he wants to go out an conquer the world, by all means do it, but do not expect me to allow you to co-opt my business or do the grunt work. It is not my goal and is not what I want, and I have been very clear about that, and yet…

Free Time

It seems like my free time has been coming in snippets lately. About two weeks ago I had an idea. An epiphany, really. That I should really be using the down time I have while I am unemployed to DO stuff.

Like:

Start writing and addressing Christmas cards.

Unpacking the remaining boxes in the garage.

Get back in the habit of blogging regularly. (Or exercising regularly for that matter.)

Actually organize the closet from when we moved in an just put stuff where ever.

Rearrange where I keep things in the kitchen now that we've been here for a year and I have a better idea of how I work in there.

Start compiling our one-year punch list for the builders so it's ready when they ask. (Too late, they've already asked.)

Finish organizing the filing cabinet and shredding old documents.

Maybe actually make one of the cute crafty things I see on Pinterest.

And the list goes on.

But of course, now that I have had this epiphany (and even bought the supplies I need for one of the crafts—notice how crafts seemed to bump the more important stuff aside for priority?), I have become incredibly busy with freelancing and other stuff. Isn't that just the way?

Which is a good thing. It is an excellent thing and I am not complaining. I have actually logged 30 hours in each of the past two weeks and out earned unemployment check, and probably will again this week. I am very thankful for that.

And the social committee decided we needed to get together on 4 different days to decorate for the Halloween party this Saturday. Really? Four days? I went for 3 hours last week and another 3 hours on Tuesday, but we were having friends over for dinner on Wednesday and I needed to be home to tend to the roast pork (so yummy!), and they want to decorate some more on Friday.

I am meeting with the Director at UNC Press Friday morning. We both worked for the same employer before, though he was in NY and I was in CA and we never met. I asked a mutual acquaintance to arrange an introduction and we're going to meet for an informational interview. I would like to learn more about UNC Press and how a university press differs from mainstream publishing, and maybe get some input on particular skills I should hone in order to pick up freelance work from them, or Oxford or Duke who also have university presses in the area.

And I've been consulting with a friend who recently launched her own business, helping her organize content on her website so it's easier to find, finding ways to streamline her workflow so she can spend more time creating instead of promoting, showing her ways to get more mileage from her social media efforts, and thinking up ideas for promotions and product packages she could offer. (Which reminds me, I still need to type up the summary from our last meeting.)

So I got all that in motion when I received a call on Monday from a recruiter for one of the big tech companies. They're looking for an editor for their technology and business web and blog properties, and it's local with some telecommute flexibility. So I set aside my freelance work and put together a resume and cover letter for the position.

Then on Tuesday I got a call from another recruiter, this one for an ebook conversion house in New Jersey doing almost exactly what I am doing now as a freelancer. They need a somewhat techie person with a background in publishing who understands book layouts and publishing standards, ideally with ebook or other digital publishing experience. This is so me! So again, I set aside my freelance work and put together a resume, cover letter, and portfolio for the position.

It is a straight telecommute position, though there is quite a bit of travel involved—New Jersey (of course) for training, orientation, and meetings as needed, but also 3 weeks in India, probably another week in the Philippines, 2 or more weeks in California to work on a "disaster" project, and traveling with sales/client reps when they meet with new clients to spec out their ebook conversion needs.

I would be happy with either position. The first one is a long-term open-ended contract and pays slightly more than what I make as a freelancer . The work would be predictable and it's local. The second one is a full-time position and would be close to a 40–50% raise. Yeah, you read that correctly. But I'll also need to be available outside normal work hours since I would be working with teams in India and the Philippines, as well as clients all over North America.

I never really thought I would be one of those on-the-go career women, but I have to say, the second one, while more demanding, sounds way more exciting. I know of this company and the work they do—the publisher I'm freelancing for is a client and I already interact with one of their off-shore teams. (The recruiter was stunned when I guessed who he was calling on behalf of during the interview—he didn't think I would know of the company and certainly didn't expect that I would already have a relationship with them.) The technology and solutions this company provides are in the direction publishing needs to move toward as it evolves to absorb ebooks and self-publishing.

I really am not a fan of outsourcing jobs, but that doesn't change the fact that India and the Philippines are where the coding is being done, not just at this company, but at all 5 of the companies like this that I've worked with. Okay, so these places aren't exactly on my list of places to travel to before I die but I bet I would still enjoy the adventure and have a wonderful time, you know, in addition to working.

I'm trying not to count my chickens, but I am pretty stoked about the possibility.

The Life of an Ant

We've been buckling down lately and taking care of fall tasks and winter prep around the house, and generally living the life of the Ant from Aesop's Ant and the Grasshopper fable. Mostly this has meant working in the yard.

Now that the evenings have been much cooler (we've been dropping into the 40ºs), the ticks and chiggers have abated somewhat and we're tackling the under brush closest to the house, chopping and hacking and snipping and pulling. We have lots of sore muscles at the end of the day, but it's a good kind of sore. We're hoping to create a buffer zone between the house and spaces we eventually want a patio or outdoor living area and the vegetation to help keep the ticks under control in the future.

I am pretty brutal when it comes to cutting things down—if we want a cleared space, everything has to go and it has to go permanently. Especially the little tree saplings establishing themselves close to the house. Aside from tick control, the thick vegetation is a fire hazard and winter storms can really wreak havoc with trees too close to the house.

We've started some pruning on the shrubs for fall and finished getting the deer netting up around the flower beds. (Just in time, too. The morning after we finished there was a family of 4 deer grazing around the house.) When spring comes I should have really healthy camellias and azaleas instead of the nearly lifeless twigs the deer left for us last spring. In fact, the camellia near the front door started blooming this week.

We had debated trying to aerate and overseed the lawn ourselves, but ended up contracting a landscaper (not the original landscaper) to do it since there were large sections that had completely died off. I am so glad we did. As the guy was getting ready to rototill the dead section he asked about the irrigation system, and I assured him no water pipes ran through the area he was about to till up. About 20 seconds later he had to stop because he'd hit electric wires. How in the heck would I have known the electrical wires for the irrigation system ran through the middle of the lawn?

Not only that, but they weren't even buried. They should have been 6–8" underground, instead they were laid on top of the ground and the sod laid on top of them. They should have been run up against the house, or at the very least along the same patten and just under the water pipes. Upon further inspection we could see the wires had been nicked multiple times by the aerater, so I'm actually really glad he hit them with the rototiller too, otherwise we would never have known.

Anyhow, after numerous calls to the builder (who has had several problems with the all the properties this particular landscaping company worked on for them) they sent out their current landscaping sub-contractor who really walked me through the system. We figured out that the wires that were cut actually hadn't been working anyhow; we had 2 water stations that hadn't been getting any juice for about 6 months, which is probably why that section of the lawn and shrubs were not doing well.

He showed me how to manually turn on each sprinkler station so we could water the grass seed we'd just added to the lawn and found that we have a leak at one of the station valves. He then sent over a quote to run the electrical up against the house and bury it, fix the leak, and replace all the electrical caps with grease-pack, water-proof end caps. Very reasonable and the builder has agreed to pay for the repairs.

Hopefully they'll be out next week or the week after to do the work. In the meantime, I'll keep sticking my hands into valve box holes to manually operate the sprinklers and hope no spiders have set up a home in there. *shudder*

And speaking of spiders. Oh. My. Lawd. There are some monster spiders out and about. I finally named the one (Lloyd) who has been living in a web across my office window for the past month. The pest control company came out for our quarterly check-up and told us these spiders are really active September and October and are mostly harmless. I just thought maybe they were trying to help me decorate for Halloween since they're building webs under the eaves all around the house. He knocked Lloyd's web down along with several others, rebaited the mouse traps, and sprayed along the foundation.

The garden is just about kaput, though the basil is still flourishing. I had thought to plant some fall veggies, but I think the space we set up our garden boxes in does not get enough sunlight this time of year to make the effort worthwhile. I want to try to move them forward out of the trees about 10 or 15 yards.  I should probably float that idea by Scoob and see if he's up to it. We'll have to shovel out all the soil in order to move the boxes and his back is still bothering him.

On the job front, I've had a few phone interviews since I posted last. None in the local area though—one in Boston, one back in San Francisco, one in Austin, and one in New Haven. The Boston one sounded really good, but the company CEO is currently moving all the remote digital workers to Boston so they ended up not wanting to add another remote worker. The one in New Haven ended up being for Yale University, but they also want someone on site. I seem to have a skill set that is in demand, just not in demand here. At least not at the moment.

Happily my freelance work has picked up pace and the fall title list has been keeping me busy this week. (I actually out earned my unemployment check this week!) I also spent some time with a local friend who recently started her own business to help her map out an online marketing strategy and refine her current efforts. All pro bono, of course, but it could end up growing into something else. We'll see.

Anyhow, that's news here.

Okra Fries

One thing I've learned since moving to North Carolina—Scoob loves okra. He likes it soups, pot pies, casseroles, and pretty much any way he can get it.

I, however, am not a big fan of okra's slimy qualities. Though, whatever it is that makes okra have that slime is supposed to be very good for you.

So I keep a bag of frozen okra in the freezer and Scoob can add okra to whatever he wants and I can stay happily okra-free.

I did make an okra and polenta casserole that wasn't too bad. (I love that autocorrect wants to change polenta to tadpole—okra and tadpole casserole would be beyond disgusting.) Though I was stunned at how difficult it was to find coarse ground cornmeal for polenta/grits here. Aren't grits a Southern staple?

And speaking of cornmeal, Scoob really likes fried okra, which is basically okra sliced into rounds, battered in cornmeal to soak up the slime, and fried. (This usually gives me heartburn, a tummy ache, or both.)

So the last time Scoob conned me into buying a pound of okra at the farmers market, I decided to fry it a bit differently. Instead of slicing it into rounds, I quartered it lengthwise, and I did not batter it. I just added it au natural into the cooking oil.

And once they browned a bit, I removed the okra fries from the oil, blotted up the excess oil with paper towels, tossed them on a plate, and sprinkled them with a little kosher salt.

I've now found Scoob's new favorite way to eat okra, and I like it too! If you like baked kale chips, you'll probably like okra fries. In fact, next time we get some fresh okra, I am going to try baking them instead of frying.