During my recent visit to the wonderful blog of my friend and fellow author Kelly Moran, I was asked about my signature dish for Christmas. Now in my house, Christmas Eve is a mix of Italian, Cuban and American foods, but the signature dish has to be the Cuban-style citrus-marinated roast pork.
We, because it is a family affair to cook this dish, start preparing it the night before after a trip to Union City, New Jersey to pick up some Cuban staples and the pork leg.
I’m normally feeding anywhere from 15 to 25 people on Christmas Eve, so I need a really really big pork leg (pork shoulder/picnic ham/pernil). I normally get a piece of pork that weighs around 25 pounds, but you can buy a much smaller piece and adjust the cooking times (more on that later).
Ingredients:
10-15 navel oranges
10 lemons
10 limes
6-8 Seville (aka Sour) Oranges
6 pink grapefruit
10-20 gloves of finely chopped garlic
Ground cumin
bay leaves
Pork leg/shoulder/picnic ham
Directions:
Juice all the above citrus into a large pot. We use one of those large buckets in which your grocery store deli get its potato salad, etc. Drop by and ask them for one! Ours is only used for the Christmas Eve pork.
The citrus mix should be sour, but with a strong hit of sweet (the navel oranges and grapefruit really help with that). You should have enough citrus juice to fully cover your piece of pork. Once you’ve tasted the sweet/sour mix, then add 3 to 4 bay leaves, about a half cup of garlic (less for a smaller piece of pork) and about 1/4 cup of cumin. Mix this all up.
Take your piece of pork and make multiple slits in it so that the marinade can penetrate into the meat. Place the pork leg in the citrus juice, cover and refrigerate. You’re probably wondering how I keep that big a bucket cold? Put the bucket in one of those big party tubs, place it in your garage (which should be slightly colder anyway) and fill the tub with ice. It should be icy cold in the morning unless you are in a really hot environment in which case you will need to keep on adding ice to keep the meat cold.
In the morning (around 6 a.m. or so) pre-heat the oven to 425. Remove the pork from the citrus and place it in a large roasting dish. Keep some of the citrus juice, bay leaves and garlic for use as a marinade. Discard the rest. Ladle about 1 to 2 cups over the pork and then stick the pork into the oven for one hour at 425. For a small piece of pork, cut down this initial high temp roast accordingly. For ten pounds make it around 30 minutes, anything smaller than that no more than about 15 minutes.
Do not baste the pork during this high heat roast.
When the high heat roast time is up, baste the pork and lower the oven temp to 325. Then cook until the meat pulls away from the bone in the leg and is starting to fall off. Marinate every half an hour during the cooking process. For a 25 pound pork leg, I will cook it for about 8 to 9 hours. The pork will turn this beautiful mahogany brown and just melt in your mouth.
For smaller pieces of pork, adjust the cooking times. A 10 pound picnic ham may take only about 4 or so hours. The key is to keep on basting and cooking at a low temp to keep the meat juicy.
If the pork begins to brown too much, just cover with aluminum and keep on cooking until the meat is fork tender.
Hope you enjoyed today’s Tuesday Tip. Here’s a shot of family and friends sitting around the Christmas Eve table, waiting to start the big meal!
First let me preface this with: I love CHUCK. It’s a great spy romantic comedy suspense.
Last night’s episode kind of annoyed me. I think in many different kinds of stories we’re asked to suspend disbelief for certain things. In the case of CHUCK there are many of them, but the primary one is that a person’s mind can somehow be programmed to be a supercomputer. It’s like believing that people can be genetically engineered to be something other than human (LOL!).
But when it comes to real life things, it’s up to a writer to make sure those real life things are portrayed accurately.
Case in point: The escape from the villain’s jet using parachutes. Chuck and his seemingly more nerdy older spy guy put on parachutes. They don’t secure them in any fashion, just slip them over their shoulders. They open the door to a moving jet and it goes flying off. They have time for banter and then jump out. The remaining people in the jet, who are unsecured in any way, are able to stay on the jet.
So wrong from a real life perspective.
1. You need to secure the parachute pack or it might get pulled off your body when you engage the chute. That’s just common sense.
2. Most parachute jumps occur from about 13,000 feet. HALO (High Altitude Low Oxygen) jumps occur from about 25,000 to 35,000 feet. HALO jumps require bailout oxygen because of the lack of oxygen at those high altitudes.
3. Most passenger jets fly at altitudes of between 30,000 and 37,000 feet. Smaller business jets may fly at even higher altitudes. Some twin engine aircraft and prop planes may fly as low as 8,000 feet. At higher altitudes, jumping from any kind of jet operating at standard norms would require bailout oxygen.
4. Flying planes at those heights also requires something else: Cabin pressurization to prevent passengers and crew members to maintain a safe and comfortable environment. Think of the inside of the cabin as the inside of a bottle of champagne. What happens when you pop off the top? With explosive decompression, things may get sucked out of the plane if the hole in large enough (as in an open door) and if the difference in pressure from inside the cabin to out is high enough.
So in other words, the jet plane parachute escape was totally implausible on various real life points. Again, while some liberties are allowed with certain fictionalized elements that form the basis of your story, you cannot skimp on facts. If a viewer or reader immediately says, “That’s so not realistic”, it draws them out of the story. It’s your job as a writer not to let that happen.
Hope you enjoyed today’s Kiss Me, Kill Me Tuesday.
On another note, don’t forget the various contests that are running to celebrate the release of STRONGER THAN SIN!
Every time you turn around you’re hearing about “your credit score” and what a poor credit score can do to you. Besides making it difficult to get a mortgage if you’re interested in buying a home, it can also raise rates on things like car insurance so it’s important to try and take steps to improve your credit score.
2. Do not keep a running balance on your credit card.
3. If you have a running balance, pay it on time.
4. Pay your other bills on time as well.
One interesting tidbit from the Yahoo Finance article was that companies calculating your credit score looked at the balance on your card whether or not you paid it off on time in order to calculate your score. Bothersome for me because I use my credit cards as a way to keep track of all my monthly expenses by charging them and also, to earn points through the various reward programs.
As for that running balance, I know that sometimes it’s hard for people to entirely pay off what they’ve charged at the end of the month. In cases of financial hardship where the credit cards are providing the cash to keep a household afloat that’s understandable. But if it’s more a case of want instead of need, think about this for a moment.
Revolving credit card rates range from anywhere to 7% (rare) to the 20something% range (some are even close to 30%). If you had $5,000 in revolving credit, you could be spending a couple of thousand dollars a year just for paying the interest on your credit card. You can do some comparisons of what you would save at MSN Money.
There’s just one thing to remember when it comes to the rewards: If you’ve got a running balance, the interest rate you’re paying may eat up any kind of reward you’re earning.
Here in the Northeast we are experiencing nearly record-breaking temperatures in addition to a decided lack of water. With the heat and humidity, it’s important to keep in mind some very important rules to safeguard your health.
Drink plenty of water while you are out and about and avoid caffeinated drinks which are diuretics. Also avoid alcohol.
If you are drinking sports drinks with all those electrolytes and metabolytes, please double-check the label especially if you have high blood pressure. The salts in those “lytes” may present a problem to your system.
If you need to be out and about, avoid the hottest part of the day from 11ish to 2ish.
Make sure to put on sun block if you will be out in the sun for any length of time or go fashionable and put on a nice broad-brimmed hat.
Do not leave animals or small children in cars with closed/semi-open windows. Not even for a minute since their bodies are much less able to tolerate high heat.
Wet your t-shirt, hanky or the insides of your wrists with water to help drive away the heat from your body. Get one of those spritz fan bottles and go to town!
If you don’t have air conditioning, make your own! Place a bowl of ice or cold water in front of the fan. It’ll pick up the cool and spread it around. Also place washcloths in a baggie and put them in the freezer. Take one out when it’s chilled and put it on your neck or wrists for instant cool.
Keep curtains and blinds drawn to cool off your house.
Wear loose, light-colored clothing.
If that doesn’t do it and if your local public library has air conditioning, head there for a quiet day of reading! After all, it’s your tax dollars paying for that air conditioning, so why not take advantage of it and of the many books to be found there.
Finally, learn the signs of heat stroke, namely, no sweating, dizziness, headache, nausea, confusion, unconsciousness, high body temp (103 or over), rapid pulse and flushed hot skin. If you see these symptoms, get the person to a shady area, get them water and try to cool them down. Last, but not least, call for medical help. Heat stroke can be deadly.
Hope these tips help you deal with our little tropical heat wave.
Today’s Tuesday is some more photos from my trip to London. This time I’m taking you to Buckingham Palace and the Mews where the Royal horses, carriages and the like are stored.
First thing — the Queen’s Apartments in the Palace are only open in August and September when the Royal Family retires to Scotland for the summer months. During the winter you have to content yourself with views of the exterior, the changing of the guard and the museums at the Palace.
We watched the changing of the guard (some of the last slides you’ll see), but it was packed. We clearly had to get there a lot earlier than we did, but despite the crowd, we were able to see the nearly 45 minute long ceremony as the one group of guards is replaced. Mind you, it’s not just the guards, but their band and everything that is changed. So, there’s a lot of pomp with all the turnover.
We also had an opportunity to visit the Royal Mews and it was really interesting. We got to see some of the horses (huge huge animals) that pull the carriages as well as various carriages, limos, carts, etc. The most interesting one — a golden carriage made for Richard III. It was stunning and the artwork on the doors, etc. was amazing.
It was interesting to see all the different carriages as well as learn how some are postillion driven (riders are on the horses pulling the carriages) versus being driven by a driver on the wagon. A bit of trivia I know I’ll put to use in one of those historical flashbacks in a future novel!
Both my husband and I used to say, give us good bread, tasty cheese and a yummy bottle of wine and we’d be set for life.
The truth is, we’ve found that only two of the three have been good for us — the dairy and wine part. The carbs, not so good.
In our desire to pursue a healthier lifestyle and control our weight, cholesterol, etc. we’ve been decidedly better at choosing what to eat, namely, lower fat dairy, lean meats, more vegetables and fruits and the occasional glass of red wine (and yes, I know 100% grape juice has the same benefits!)
But when it came to weight loss, the one sure thing that helped and also reduced our belly fat — lowering our carbohydrate intake. We haven’t totally eliminated it, but we are much more conscious of eating high fiber, whole grain, low calorie carbohydrate products.
Of course, each person’s metabolism is different, so it’s a give and take to find out what works best for you. To help you, here are some more tips for you to consider.
Substitute tea and iced tea for coffee or soda. Tea is packed with antioxidants and the polyphenols in tea can help ward off cancer and diabetes while providing a gentle boost of energy. Just make sure not to steep the tea too long to avoid releasing tannins which can cause stomach upset and constipation. Here’s more on the benefits of tea in your diet!
Use honey in your tea or for your other sweetening needs. Honey is one of nature’s wonder products and you can find out more about the health benefits of honey here. I had tried using agave nectar and found it quite sweet. In retrospect, and beyond all the hype about its wonders, I’m starting to hear a lot of negative things about agave nectar. So, if you’ve got diabetes or problems with your tri-glycerides, you may want to avoid it.
In my case, I had reached a plateau where I was stuck at a certain weight. No matter what I did eating wise, I could not get that scale to budge which I have to do for health reasons and not for vanity’s sake. The solution for me — increasing my weight training by adding more weight and increasing the work during my aerobic workout by likewise adding resistance. Both helped me bust through a plateau! I’ve lost 13 pounds and am looking to keep on losing until I am a recommended weight for my height.
I hope you found this Tuesday Tip helpful! I’ll keep you posted on my progress and if you’ve got any suggestions of your own about losing weight and getting healthier, please share them in the comments section. And as always, check with your doctor about what you can and can’t do in terms of diet and exercise.
We took a lovely train ride out to Windsor to see Windsor Castle and the quaint town nearby, also the home to Eton, the exclusive school. Weather was a bit dreary, but not too cold. Unfortunately, Her Majesty was in residence which meant we could go on the castle grounds for free, but were unable to get into any of her “apartments.” Major bummer as I was dying to see the various bedrooms, kitchens, dining areas, etc. that we had seen on the PBS special about a year in the life of Windsor Castle.
Nevertheless, we were able to walk around all the grounds and see St. George’s Chapel. The guards were patrolling all over the area and are quite attractive in their bright red coats and furry hats. Real guns — no one will mess with them.
The gardens and areas in and around Windsor Castle are lovely. Well-kept and so green thanks to the spring rains. If you see the picture of the entrance to the Moat Path in the slide show below, it is now the entrance to the gardens that have replaced the moat.
We then headed to town where we had fish and chips in a delightful pub and walked around town before returning to London. The train ride was nice and it was a good way to also get a glimpse of the suburbs and countryside around London.
If you’re like me, you’ve got a list of places you’d like to see sometime in your life — Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, Great Wall of China, etc. and possibly also Stonehenge.
Well, I’m so happy I could take Stonehenge off the list because we took a tour to see it during our visit to London. It took about an hour and a half to get there, but it was worth the trip since we got to see the English countryside and then went on to see Bath (more on that in another post).
Some interesting things about Stonehenge. The word “henge” derives from either “hanging” or “hinge” which makes sense considering how the stones hang on each other.
Even before Stonehenge was built, the area was used as a burial place and there are several burial mounds in and around Stonehenge. Eventually, the closer you got to be buried next to the stones, the more important you were. In this shot from the bus (a little blurry), you can see a burial mound off to the right of the photo. The mounds are known as barrows.
It’s believed that construction at this site began around 3100 BC and continued until about 1600 BC. Archaelogists believe the site was constructed as a monument by early civilizations and the connection to Druids apparently comes much later in the history of the monument.
This shot was taken from what is known as the “Heelstone” (which you can see in the album as the one lone stone apart from the monument). The smaller stone laying down in front is the “slaughter stone.”
Sadly, you can no longer touch the stones or get very close to them. It would have been nice to get in the center and see what kind of energy, if any, exists there. Unfortunately, that was not possible and so the only thing we felt was the cold wind blowing along the fields.
Journals are a wonderful way to keep track of so many things. Whether it’s a diet journal where you keep track of the foods you eat, a workout journal to record progress, a personal journal for important thoughts or a travel journal to remind you of where you have been, journals rock!
So what’s the best way to keep a journal?
Like everything else, different things work best for different people. I’m a computer person, so for a lot of my things – like my travels for research – I jot down notes on my computer and upload the photos I take. But I also hang onto the tickets and pamphlets from the various places we go. My daughter and I will then often sit down and create a scrapbook for our trip to retain the memories for the future.
My daughter is very hands-on, so she keeps a paper journal with her where she writes down her thoughts and stories and adds pictures and other keepsakes.
Many writers keep journals of their personal thoughts or of ideas for new books. Some do it on paper, others on computers. Some even do it online via their blogs or websites. You can use blog sites to keep online journals, just make sure of two things:
If you want to keep it personal, make sure there is a way to set the blog as being private and not public.
Make sure there is a way to download or copy that journal to your hard drive or move it to another blog platform.
How often should you keep journal entries?
Again there is no right or wrong to it, except maybe one wrong – Not doing it.
Find the best time for you to collect your thoughts or the information you want to record. It may be private time or it may be out in public. At the gym I see a number of people with note pads to track their workout progress. They record the weight and repetitions that they do in order to have an effective exercise routine.
What do I get out of journaling?
As a writer, you build your writing chops with each writing exercise that you do.
Plus, it’s a way to keep track of important events or memories that might be lost if they are not recorded in any way. Many years ago I wrote down the history of how my family had come here for my nephew and it was amazing how much there was that he didn’t know and how much I had never really discussed with anyone. I thought it would only be a few pages when I got started and it ended up being more like 20. And that was just general information about the short two year stretch around when we left Cuba!
If you have a family elder that is still alive, it may be a good time to see about making a video journal of them with some of the stories of when they were younger. There are so many differences from then to now and in the future, all those stories and memories might be lost if don’t record them or if you don’t repeat those stories to the next generation.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Mexico on several occasions for business and totally enjoyed the time I spent there. The people are warm and gracious, the margaritas are refreshing and the food . . . Well, the food is divine. I could probably eat Mexican food every day and not complain!
My experience with Mexican culture and the many Mexican-Americans in the Jersey Shore area is what led me to make the hero of SINS OF THE FLESH, Mick Carrera, a Mexican-American. As for the heroine, she is Mexican-Irish, a nod to my editor at Grand Central Publishing as well as to two cultures rich in the arts.
There are a number of scenes in SINS OF THE FLESH where the characters are enjoying Mexican food prepared by Mick’s mother at his family’s Mexican restaurant. I’ve shared some Mexican/Tex-Mex recipes with you in the past.
But now, another recipe for one of the foods that you’ll see in SINS OF THE FLESH and it’s a simple one. While I love enchiladas and tamales, they are a lot of work. This is an easy recipe and one which you can use for your next party or as a side dish to your tacos, burritos or even as a topping on your hamburger.
Guacamole
Ingredients
2 ripe Florida Avocados (or 4 ripe Hass Avocados)
Juice of two limes (about 1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2-4 shots Cholula or Tabasco hot sauce (to your taste or omit if you do not like spicy)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup medium onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic finely minced
Optional:
2 ripe Roma Tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup queso fresco, crumbled
Directions
Slice the avocados in half and remove the seed. Scoop out the insides of 3/4 of the avocados. Leave 1/4 to the side for now.
Mash the avocados with a fork and add the lime juice and remaining ingredients. Mix together.
Chop the remaining 1/4 avocado into small pieces and add to your mixture. If you’ve chosen to add the tomatoes and queso fresco, add the tomatoes now and 1/4 cup of the queso fresco.
Mix all the ingredients lightly. Garnish with the remaining queso fresco.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Tuesday Tip. Just to make it all clear and legal, Cuervo is one of my clients, but I’m recommending their products because they make a wonderful tequila! FYI – If you ever have a chance to visit the city of Tequila in Mexico, see if you can spend some time at Mundo Cuervo, a cultural center established by Jose Cuervo and dedicated to Mexico and the history of tequila. I’ve been there and it is absolutely amazing!
Every time you turn around you’re hearing about “your credit score” and what a poor credit score can do to you. Besides making it difficult to get a mortgage if you’re interested in buying a home, it can also raise rates on things like car insurance so it’s important to try and take steps to improve your credit score.
We’re having a heat wave…
Both my husband and I used to say, give us good bread, tasty cheese and a yummy bottle of wine and we’d be set for life.
Journals are a wonderful way to keep track of so many things. Whether it’s a diet journal where you keep track of the foods you eat, a workout journal to record progress, a personal journal for important thoughts or a travel journal to remind you of where you have been, journals rock!
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Mexico on several occasions for business and totally enjoyed the time I spent there. The people are warm and gracious, the margaritas are refreshing and the food . . . Well, the food is divine. I could probably eat Mexican food every day and not complain!
