Pork Adobo and exploding pine cones

Published on 4/8/02 Daily Egyptian (SIUC)

This week's column comes to you from Pine Ridge Boy Scout Reservation in the Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge. Here the wildlife is mostly for the boys. My son is in Scouting, and this weekend his Webelos Den "crossed over" and became part of a Boy Scout Troop. As I type this, he and the other scouts are off attending various sessions to learn what they will need to know as scouts. The other adults and I are grateful for the respite. Two of the sessions they are attending center around fire. One is fire starting, the other is how to build a fire. It seems a little pointless; watching my son and the other scouts around the campfire last night, I saw that they know all they want to know about fire.

While they didn't burn down the woods, they did learn that small, damp, unopened pine cones will explode with a satisfying bang if thrown in a fire. This noisy discovery was greeted with alarm by a couple of the adults, while the more experienced leaders took the attitude "worse things could happen." Last December, one of my colleagues, while bemoaning the lack of fame his column had brought him, suggested the worst thing that happened to him was people would read his column in the lavatory. While this doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture, it's certainly not the worst that could happen.

The worst thing that could happen is you have a point and no one gets it. Last week's column is a case in point. I have received several comments about the column, mostly centering around, "yeeewww! She really got her tongue pierced?" Yes, she did. But while I thought that was a humorous way to lead into the subject, my niece's self-inflicted wound was not the point. Other comments either chastised or praised me for fixing my niece's favorite food while her tongue was still healing.

By the way, the vast majority of those who commented found it funny, not cruel. One comment passed on to me included a request for my pork adobo recipe. My culinary skills or warped sense of humor were not the point, either. No one said, "Yes, Oz, racial profiling is always bad;" or "Racial profiling at airports is a good thing." A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about the low voter turnout for the primaries, and while I did receive one e-mail that said, "I wanted to vote, but ..." most of the responses missed the point.

One reader wrote me to explain why no one shows up to meet the candidates. Yes, I did express surprise that few showed up in Vienna to meet one of the candidates, but the candidate's lack of audience wasn't the point. Another reader thanked me for mentioning his candidate in that column, even though I really didn't say anything other than I met the guy and took a few pictures. Apparently, he felt even weak exposure was better than no exposure.

The point I was trying to make was how we in Southern Illinois, by our lack of turnout at the polls, were giving politicians license to continue to ignore us and our issues. So this week I'm surrendering. There's no point, other than perhaps how to pick out the explosive pine cone. Oh, and here's the recipe for pork adobo:

2 lbs pork, cut in 1-inch cubes

1 onion, sliced thick

1 cup rice vinegar

3 bay leaves

10 peppercorns

soy sauce to taste

Put the pork, bay leaves and pepper corns in a large pot. Lay the onion slices on top and heat to simmering. Simmer until the pork is very tender and the onions soft. Add the vinegar and enough soy sauce to make the liquid a medium brown. Turn up the heat to medium high, and cook until the liquid is mostly reduced. Check the sauce often and adjust the soy as needed. When it's done there should be some liquid left, but not a lot. Serve over hot rice.