I was very busy this weekend installing a new garage door opener and a few other tasks so my cooking was limited. My wife surprised me by cooking enchiladas on Friday. I did not feel like cooking after installing the new garage door opener on Saturday. Sunday I prepared two dishes but neglected to measure anything, which removes them as possibilities for recipe of the week. However, the first was a Mexican style soup with Grilled Beef and Black Bean salsa. The second was an Indian inspired Chicken Curry with San Marzano tomatoes. You may recall that I taste tested San Marzano against Hunts and Heinz tomatoes and San Marzano won hands down. They taste and look better.  Okay, the recipe of the week is Barbeque Shrimp. I first made this dish twenty plus years ago and it continues to be a favorite. Jeff Smith, the Frugal Gourmet, inspired me to cook his version and then to modify it to suit my tastes. I will suggest these three things in preparing the dish. One, if heat is not your thing, leave out the Tabasco and the dish is still tasty. Two, if you want to reduce the mess, then peel and devein the shrimp prior to cooking. And three, my favorite way to make this is to split the shells so diners can remove the shrimp cleanly. Of course, you eat these by sucking the shells and then pulling out the tender shrimp. So, Barbeque Shrimp, enjoy!

Fixing FoIP

The bane of IP Communications is faxing or Fax over IP (FoIP). The SIP Forum (www.sipforum.org) and the i3 Forum (www.i3forum.org) announced earlier this month a testing program for FoIP. FoIP has been plagued with transmission problems and interoperability issues. At Broadvox, we have identified one of our best engineers as the Fax Ninja to address the problems our customers face in attempting to use FoIP. We proudly claim 90% or better transmission rates over our network. However, we can do little to address partner networks that do not work as hard to maintain support for FoIP. It is important to address FoIP as the T.38 protocol is widely deployed across most network topologies. T.38 is the standard for IP networks to transport faxes. The SIP Forum and i3 Forum will bring together international carriers from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Middle East. The testing should aid the SIP Forum FoIP Task Group in determining how to improve the SIP protocol in its support of FoIP.

Mike Coffee, CEO of Commetrex and Co-Chair of the SIP Forum's FoIP Task Group said, "IP fax communications has unique characteristics and special requirements compared to VoIP traffic, and this testing program will give us a deeper understanding of what is happening within the underlying network infrastructure of each participating carrier and especially the inter-carrier signaling of each IP fax call."

I hope the effort is successful. It would certainly make our carrier and business customers happier.