thoughts on pernil

Hmmm....pernil....aka pork shoulder, or pork shoulder butt, comes from the top of the pig's forelegs, like in the way of ham, only the latter comes from the animal's hind legs. It is a really affordable cut, with lots of fat marbling that translates into moisture and flavor during cooking. It is also a staple of Venezuelan feasts, and I learn it is as well for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Despite having very similar approaches and flavors, they are all very different. Puerto Ricans add spicy peppers; Venezuelans, oregano. Cubans add orange juice, Puerto Ricans, a blend of lemon, lime and orange juices, as well as a rub of adobo. I remember eating it with a sauce of garlic, oregano, sugar, some moscatel wine and worcestershire. I figure there is no right or wrong answer here, just as long as there is at least three hours to marinate, at least four more in the oven and the result is fork-tender. Taking cues from a variety of sources, including this month's Bon Appetit issue, Serious Eats (a fantastic food blog) and my memory, I'm attempting to materialize my own vision of pernil.

Rub the pork with a lemon, salt and pepper and let sit in a roasting pan.
Purée in a blender: couple of cloves of garlic, a small onion, a cup of fresh cilantro, a whole jalapeño, a teaspoon of cumin, with a cup each of orange juice and pineapple juice. Season with salt, pepper and a couple of dashes of red wine vinegar.
Pour liquid marinade on pork, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours, or preferably overnight.
Preheat oven to 450. Covered with tin foil, bake for one hour. Bring temperature down to 400, and let the guy hang out in the oven for about 4 hours. Everyone seems to agree that the desired temp of the meat should be around 180. But I don't have a thermometer, so I'm pretty much eye-balling it here.

(Bad cook disclosure: after the initial hour in the oven, this bad cook here laid down to read, aka rest her eyes, or otherwise known as taking a mid-afternoon nap, and thus left the pernil unsupervised. I woke, with an hour left on my timer, and the meat falling off the bone. All in all, the pernil was in the oven for three hours, and it seemed plenty.)

Remove foil and cook uncovered for about 20 more minutes for the meat to brown.
Move the pernil to a serving platter to rest. Transfer the pan juices to a small saucepan, add a dash of white wine and reduce. Strain the solids and reduce the cleared broth by half.

I served this with a succotash-esque side: leeks, shallots, garlic, yellow and green zucchini squash, sweet white corn and a few cherry tomatoes. Alone, the pernil was a little too acidic, too bright. I'd suggest an extra dash of salt and omitting the red wine vinegar in the marinade. But together, pernil and corn ragu, are a pretty amazing match and helped set the tone for the evening to come. Hmmm, pernil!

1st Communion: a night of memories and building intimacy

What a night, what a night! After a lot of last minute work which included rolling out fresh pasta as well as setting the dining room, Jacob, Lisa and I had almost everything ready, except my makeup, by the time our first guest arrived. This first communion was a little different than I'd intended: only one of us was a stranger to the rest. Out of ten invited guests, only three rsvp'd; the rest were foodie friends who'd volunteered as understudies. So, the atmosphere was more of a themed dinner party than the social experiment I had planned. Given the pun of having it be a "first" communion, I decided the overarching theme would be about our childhood. I thought it would be appropriate to explore how the kids we once were informs the adults we are today.

We started off with a purée of eggplant soup, a dollop of basil goat cheese, and a round of everyone's earliest, or most poignant memories. Amazingly, a lot of them included a body of water, but most included a trauma, or a distressed feeling. Feelings of betrayal by parents who'd promised they'd catch us, and didn't. Feelings of desperation when we were in some sort of medical emergency. And then, there were the memories which we couldn't recall, but we'd inherited. It led us to ask: what makes a memory, or rather, a childhood memory? A lot of us remembered an early moment, as early as being three or four, that most of us can't really remember, but have had imprinted on our consciousness by the adults who witnessed the event.

Second course: my broiled chicken with an olives, lemon and bread salad, along with tales of what did we want to be when we grew up. Baseball players, taxi drivers, seamstresses, models, mad scientists, absolutely nothing, or a variety of things depending on the day. What drove our desires was an interesting exploration: can girls be smart, and can they invent a time machine? What are boys supposed to be? Is reaching adulthood even a possibility? The social contexts and the gendered expectations of our desires were a good topic of conversation: what does city dwelling, single parent households, suburbia, queerness, or being an only child do to how we develop desires or long term goals?

Third course: homemade tagliatelle with Jacob's lamb ragú, and stories of our thirteenth birthday. A lot of us didn't remember that specific year, but could remember a few years before or after. My 13th birthday was February 4th, 1992, which in Venezuelan politics is the day our current president, Hugo Chávez, tried a Coup-d'état. A very primal resentment sprung out that day when my birthday party was canceled due to a state's curfew. I think that is the day where I became conscious of a being a political being, or at least living in a grander political context.

Good thing that by the time our fourth course was due, everyone had had plenty of wine. The topic: first crushes and early heartaches with melon and lime sorbet. Funny thing was, the full names of strangers buried away by decades were being shouted out at the dinner table. Detailed descriptions of that tight knot in one's chest when being broken up with, or that guilty feeling when breaking up with someone. Some stories of first sexual experiences came up, like the Norwegian woman in Sri Lanka getting her way with a thirteen-year-old, or the gift-wrapped condom for a seventeenth birthday.

Our cheeseplate was comprised by a Roaring Forties, a tasmanian cow's milk blue cheese that was both dolce and stinky, and a Sottocenere Perla Grigia, a soft piedmontese cow's milk cheese, with my perfected batch of walnut raisin bread and a trio of apricot, fig and pear jams. We discussed our first drunkenness, but you'll have to forgive me, dear readers, since the only detail I remember from that conversation was that I myself was now really drunk, and was contemplating the irony of having to recount my first drunkenness amidst my most recent.
Thanks to my friend e.m.a.e.l, the perfect closing prompt asked diners to fill in the blank: I want more of [...] in my life. Adventure, consistency, fun/honesty/money, simplicity, intimacy. The best one was not written on the menu, but rather scribbled onto the table, hidden away by breadcrumbs, candlewax, and water stains: CONNECTION. I feel like the intimate stories and memories we shared did just that, build and strengthen the connection, intimacy, and honesty among us at the table.
Next Communion is Tuesday, September 8th!

prelude to 1st Communion

Today is our first Communion. I'm pretty excited, but also pretty nervous. I rose at 730 (which NEVER happens) after dreaming that I had forgotten to marinate the meats, despite doing it last night before bed. Soup is stewed, croutons are just out of the oven. A new batch of the walnut-raisin bread is rising, and a last perfected batch of sorbet is in the ice cream maker. I still have to do a goat cheese-basil paste, but will do that almost to dinnertime. I'm still reading on how to candy mint leaves, but think I may be overdoing it [scoff, overachiever.]
Jacob Brownwood, aka booh, is in charge of the main course and of picking two cheeses for dessert. I had a blast with him at WineHouse last Friday, trying to pick wine. California, Italy or Rhone? How much splurging can we do? And where can we find a good, but affordable, bottle of vin santo? Lisa 'the peanut' is our designated server, but I think she'll forget to clear courses once she's in the midst of conversation. And Molly D.W, my coworker at Range, is our confession instigator, or mistress of ceremony.
And Ceremony is exactly what has been on my mind lately: the attitudes and behaviors that ceremony and ritual entice. The performative aspects of ceremony that are acted out on the table. The table then, as a stage or an altar. But where is the line between ceremony and protocol? The decorum of ceremony is not of interest here, but the human component to rites of celebration. Etiquette is a social construction; ritual may be a human necessity.
I'm really excited to see what sort of stories come up. We have five confirmed guests (not all of them strangers) who have been or are currently involved in the food industry. This first Communion is certainly a sort of initiation rite for me, as I think a lot of ideas will get fleshed out and/or flushed out.
Next up will be the results...