I was definitely inspired to cook this weekend. Friday, Gay, my wife asked for chicken fried steak which I made along with chicken fried chicken. Saturday, began with shrimp omelettes for breakfast with meatloaf for dinner. Given that my first recipe turned many of you off because I did not use catsup as a topping. I did glaze this with a mixture of catsup, Worcestershire and horseradish. Delicious! The recipe of the week though was supposed to be twice cooked pork belly. Slow roasted pork belly with rosemary and the white seasoning mixture was then chilled, cut into half inch slices and deep fried. This I served with a Mediterranean tomato soup using oregano instead of basil and feta cheese as a garnish. Again, delicious! However, while purchasing the pork belly, I also bought a dozen each of habanero and jalapeño peppers. In addition to the pork belly on Sunday, I made four hot sauces each using a base of tomatoes, garlic and shallots; jalapeño with chipotle peppers and lime juice, jalapeño with adobo seasoning, cilantro and vinegar , habanero with rice wine vinegar, and habanero with apple cider vinegar, honey, and roasted grapes. These were each pureed in a blender, strained, with water, vinegar or juice added to make the liquid enough for bottling. I had never made hot sauces before but I will going forward. The character of each of these was far superior to anything I have ever purchased previously. The habanero based sauces are too hot for most people but the smoky jalapeño hot sauce should fit most palates. Smoky Jalapeño Hot Sauce is the recipe of the week. Enjoy!

Windows 8 is hot!

Last week I mentioned the attendee excitement during Mobile World Congress over Android phones and applications. I completely forgot Windows 8 and that has to be corrected. Microsoft seems to have a winner on its hands, albeit targeting tablets and smartphones better than laptops or PCs. And that may be a good thing if those computing devices ultimately dominate the personal computing market. Two words are used the most in describing Windows 8 “fast” and “beautiful”. I intend to install the beta version on my home computer this evening to gain firsthand knowledge of the interface and ease of use.

Windows is often overlooked as an operating system due to the buzz surrounding Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. However, one cannot ignore an operating system that supports over a billion users and is sold on over 350 million platforms every year. In fact I surprised one of our IP OEMs when I identified a Windows-based IP PBX as a top five selling platforms for the Broadvox SIP Trunking products. 3CX has been an important Broadvox partner since 2008 and it is our only Windows-based IP PBX alternative. Simply put 3CX uses a well established interface and OS to deliver everything that is hot about IP Communications, cost savings, productivity improvement, convergence, and application integration. All of this leads to a windows based Unified Communications platform.

The future of IP communications innovation and entrepreneurship is strong when it is supported by the hottest OSs on the planet!