Three Beautiful Things 02/19/18: Holiday Punctuation, Braised Pork in Green Curry Sauce, Money -- It's a Gas

1. Sunday night, I knew the Deke was officially a retired public school teacher. She didn't know that today was Presidents Day. Or President's Day. Or Presidents' Day.

All three forms of punctuating this holiday are acceptable. A consensus does not exist as to whether the day belongs to no one but is for presidents in general (Presidents Day), belongs to one president, George Washington (President's Day), or belongs to Washington and Lincoln, both born in February (Presidents' Day), or belongs to all presidents (Presidents').

So while this holiday is a vacation for many public school teachers, it also, by the ambiguous punctuation of its very name, raises fun teacherly questions about possessives and apostrophes. Is it a fun studently question? I could never tell when I taught English if my students enjoyed diving into these and other such questions. I know I did! I enjoyed them when I was a student, too. 

2. I tried something new in the food lab (kitchen) today.  The idea popped in my head that it might work to braise a shoulder blade pork roast in coconut milk and green curry paste with mushrooms, onion, and broccoli. I read around a bit and discovered that other people who cook do some variation of this, so I took out our two pound roast, cut it into four chunks, separating the chunks from the bone.

I roasted the bone and some meat attached to it at 475 degrees for about 45 minutes and, once it cooled, put it in a ziplock bag in the freezer to use for a future soup stock.

In the Dutch oven, I browned the pork chunks and removed them, sauteed the vegetables until nearly brown, removed them, and created a pool of coconut milk, green curry paste, fish sauce, sugar, and soy sauce, and, after I heated it a bit and stirred it to combine the ingredients, I added the pork and vegetables back in.

I set the oven at 275 degrees and put the Dutch oven in. I checked this dish a couple of hours later and the broccoli had turned to mush. I removed the stalks and the Deke and I ate them on the spot. They were tasty, but next time I'll drop those broccoli into the pot much later in the braising process.

After about three hours or so in the oven, the pork had reached a peak of tenderness and juiciness. The heat of the curry was present, but not at all overwhelming. I served the meat on a plate and poured the braising liquid into a container for the Deke and me to dip into as we pleased and pour over our meat and, for me, jasmine rice and, for the Deke, some noodles she bought at the store.

I got out our jar of ground chili paste and our bottle of sweet chili sauce and experimented with them for a couple of bites each and enjoyed the added heat, but I think I enjoyed the meal without an added condiment even more.

Since we both enjoyed this meal so much, it is good news that we have enough left over for another meal on Tuesday.

3. The Deke and I have not quite figured out our financial situation in our retirement. It's always a work in progress. With the help of some Jameson Irish Whiskey, we sat down and talked about our financial obligations, our income, and other sources of money and decided to at least look into some other projects involving the improvement of our house. The Deke and I don't hug that often. This conversation wasn't always easy, but we ended it in each others' arms as a gesture of mutual gratitude.