Painting Almost Finished and Slow Roasted Pork

Progress on sky and water

This shot is from a few days ago. This painting moved along at a good pace.

Continued progress

This painting is nearly finished now.

We have planted potatoes, corn, lettuce, and the Walla Walla onions that I can hardly wait to sink my teeth into late in the summer. They are a Vidalia style onion, and are so mild that you can bite into one like an apple, if you like that sort of thing. My children would be repulsed at this notion, as I was years ago when I watched E.J. Kahn Jr. of New Yorker fame concoct a sandwich for himself out of two slices of bread, mayonnaise, and a one inch thick slice of onion. Now I am older my tastebuds can agree with his, I guess.

Today we plant tomatoes, and tonight we are having some friends to dinner. We can accomplish both in one day by serving our guests a favorite recipe: Slow roasted pork.

I am using 1/2 a fresh ham (uncured, unsmoked). It weighs about six pounds. Rub with a mixture of about 1/8 cup kosher salt, 1/8 cup sugar, 1 tsp ground bay leaf, 1 tsp coriander and 1/2 tsp black pepper. Season to taste, but the ham will take a surprising amount of salt without getting over seasoned, and some “washes off” while it is roasting etc.

At about 10 this morning the ham goes on a rack in a shallow roasting pan in a 200 degree oven. It will roast all day until about 4:30 or 5:00, maybe longer (monitor it near the end to make sure it doesn’t dry out). By that time it will fall off the bone. I usually chop it into shreds, put it in a serving dish and then pour over it a sauce of cider vinegar, sugar (or brown sugar), small amount of ketchup, worcestershire sauce, a decent shot of hot sauce of some type, pinch of cloves, black pepper and lemon juice, all cooked together to make a hot/sweet/sour sauce. Taste this as you go, and you can use whatever you have on hand – it is different each time I make it. Dry red pepper flakes are a good addition.

You can put this in the oven in the morning, do something else all day while it is cooking, and it never fails to please your guests.

Tom

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