Going into the weekend, I had already decided on my recipe of the week, Crab Cakes. With that done, I could cook in a more relaxed fashion because my recipe was set. That is until I saw an episode of Man v. Food Puerto Rico. The premise of the show is to find some interesting and tasty dishes in a given city and then close out the program with some type of eating challenge. The challenge was to eat an eight-pound platter of meat and other stuff, not very interesting cuisine or television for that matter. However, the first dish of the show, Chuleta Kan-Kan, grabbed my attention. Chuleta Kan-Kan is a deep-fried pork chop that includes the pork belly and rind. In the freezer, I had a pair of thick pork chops (1 ½ inches) in a marinade. I don't remember all of the ingredients, but I can say they included soy sauce, Chinese five-spice and crushed red peppers. (I frequently freeze meat with a marinade, so that it gains flavor as it thaws in the refrigerator, and is ready to cook when I get home.) In this case, I tightly wrapped the thawed chops in aluminum foil and roasted them for 90 minutes at 325^oF. I unwrapped them, saving the meat juices for dipping, and deep-fried the chops for 5 minutes in 350^oF oil. It was an OMG moment. The crispy exterior belied the fall apart interior. Every bite was exquisite with the au jus. Proper Chuleta Kan-Kan includes the pork belly and crispy pork rind but I assure you this is worth trying. However, since I was not planning on a recipe, I have no idea as to ingredient amounts, weights and such. So I am giving you what I think is the best Crab Cake recipe in the world  to enjoy, Chuleta Kan-Kan another time.

SIP Trunking Continues to Grow

Last week, I noted that Frost and Sullivan reported a decline in overall IP Communications spending among enterprise customers. Spending was down for all systems, TDM, hybrid and IP PBXs. However, for those positioning and selling SIP Trunks there is good news indeed. Infonetics recently completed a survey showing that SIP Trunking is gaining in market share and soon will be the second most deployed trunking type behind the ever-venerable T1. The basic facts reported by Infonetics are the following:

·         The number of SIP trunks provided by ITSPs worldwide more than doubled in 2009. This establishes SIP Trunking as one of the fastest growing VoIP services in 2009.

·         The enterprise SBC market grew 53% in 2009, to $61 million versus the enterprise telephony market, which declined 22% in 2009.

·         SIP Trunking is the only trunking technology gaining traction. Half of survey respondents plan to use SIP trunks by 2012

While all of that is very reassuring to Broadvox and ITSPs in general, the rationale for deciding to transition from TDM to SIP/IP communications has changed somewhat. The number one reason remains the same, cost savings. As usual, I find Infonetics use of the word "trunk" as interchangeable with the phase "concurrent call sessions" confusing for those new to SIP. However, the discussion of purchasing concurrent call sessions one at a time versus 12-24 channels of T1 was interesting as a cost savings component. Normally, we begin by pointing out the greater than 50% savings over each TDM line/circuit. Both are effective in identifying immediate and beneficial cost savings.

More on Wednesday...