Last week was interesting for foods fixed during the week. I made pan roasted chicken with a creamy Boursin cheese sauce and chicken and dumplings. The first is a dish that has been in my repertoire for over two decades, thoroughly enjoyable. The second is one that continues to evade perfection. I can make a great soup but I have yet to find the perfect dumplings. In fact, I made three versions this time and was not happy with any of them. I will keep trying. Sunday’s breakfast was pancakes with walnuts and bacon, tasty and a little different from the usual blueberries, apples or bananas. The pancake recipe came with my wife nearly 28 years ago. However, I decided to switch things up with the addition of chopped walnuts and bacon. It was very good and I will make it again. Dinner on the other hand was truly a first and I am afraid somewhat not repeatable. Everything was cooked/finished in the over. Roasted quartered Yukon gold potatoes seasoned with chervil, salt, pepper, onion and garlic power was the starch. Roasted Brussels sprouts seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon peel was topped with a mixture of bacon and cheese before serving. Finally, I marinated a pork loin in salt, sugar and lemon juice. Seasoned it with rosemary, marjoram, sage, salt and pepper and pan roasted it. At one time all three dishes were in the oven together. It was served with an apple cider reduction and vinegar sauce. By the way, pan roasting refers to first searing the meat in a skillet and then transferring the skillet to the oven to finish cooking the meat. It is faster than just roasting and delivers better flavor as a result of the searing. I would love to have offered anyone of these as the recipe of the week but I didn’t measure or time anything. So, the recipe of the week is Pancakes with Walnuts and Apple Smoked Bacon. Enjoy!

Panned

An announcement by HP to present webOS to developers as an open source platform will do little to save it from withering on the vine. With a less than stellar history, webOS is a bit late to the party given the successes of iOS and Android. Unless HP is going to put in place a really innovative motivation scheme to create a pool of developers, this will lag all of the other mobile OSs including the faltering BlackBerry OS 7 and nascent Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). Understanding which mobile OSs are going to be adopted by SMB and enterprise IT departments is very important to Unified Communications (UC), and those decisions will be driven by what users have purchased or are demanding. In addition to having a Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) solution, the popularity of mobile smartphones and tablets is accelerating the need to support a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy for all IT applications. Broadvox has joined other UC Solutions providers in offering FMC for the most popular mobile OSs (iOS, Android and BB OS) providing transparent use of and transfer to those mobile devices. Until there is broader adoption of Mango or a newcomer like webOS, do not expect developers or solution providers to create applications certified to support devices using these platforms.