An Odd Pairing, Pork and Clams, Obama and Net Neutrality

Two thoughts come to mind as I look back on this weekend's dining delights. First, it is good that the Super Bowl comes once a year as I always prepare too much fried food. Second, remembering one of your better dishes is always a pleasant surprise. In preparation for eating during the Super Bowl, I deep-fried Buffalo wings, butterflied shrimp coated with Japanese Panko breadcrumbs, and cornmeal dusted oysters. The shrimp and oysters were an homage to New Orleans and served as po' boys with tartar sauce, chopped lettuce and sliced tomatoes. All good things, but the recipe of the week is a dish that finds it origins in Portugal. The Portuguese combine pork and clams in a stew like dish called Pork Alentejana. While very good, it is indeed a stew. It is usually made with a fattier cut of pork such as a pork butt that has been cooked for a couple of hours and then graced with the addition of clams. When I first combined these ingredients, I made the stew. Saturday, I purloined a pair of beautiful inch thick loin chops that I had no intention of cooking for several hours. Instead I pan roasted them, and made the tomato sauce and clams separately. The dish was excellent and thus our recipe of the week! So, while I will call it Pork Alentejana, it is only out of respect to the Portuguese as this is a fancier dinner party version. Enjoy!

Obama Speaks out on Net Neutrality

A recent YouTube posting of President Obama musing on his opinion of net neutrality shows both an understanding of the issue and an odd perception. While he clearly sees larger carriers as being opposed to net neutrality he offers an unusual defense of the issue. His opinion is that without net neutrality, we may be preventing the development of the next Google or YouTube. I seriously doubt that Google is spending energy and resources to push forward the need for net neutrality in order to make it easier for a competitor to be established. The second odd statement was that the larger carriers wanted to avoid net neutrality in order to make their wealthier customers pay more for the IP services they demand. Really? The greatest consumers of internet bandwidth are the wealthier users. I think not.

I appreciate that President Obama knows the name of his FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski and has an awareness of the issue of net neutrality but someone needs to brief him on the real opportunities and threats associated with the issue. It has a lot more to do with consumer rights than creating new jobs and protecting access to the many Internet applications and services than soaking a few rich users.

You can view the Obama Interview and decide for yourself.

In the meantime, I am going to savor the Saints victory yesterday with one final, "Who Dat?"

See you on Wednesday.