Cassoulet

This sounds like a lot of work, but it's really not that bad. Do your shopping and soak the beans the day before. Start the recipe at least 5 hours before you want the cassoulet on the table, though it will sit for 20 minutes or so after it comes out of the oven.

This recipe serves 6.

For the beans:

2 cups navy or Great Northern beans (soaked for 12 hours, change the water a few times)

bundle together with kitchen string:

a few sprigs of parsley, thyme, and rosemary

1 bay leaf

1 celery stalk, cut in half

1 green end of a leek

1/2 of a medium onion

1 whole clove (press it into the onion half so it doesn't get lost in the beans)

1 medium carrot, peeled and cut in half

1 can whole peeled tomatoes with juice, chopped

2 ounces salt pork (also called fatback), cut into 1/2" cubes

1/2 lb. pork shoulder, cut into 3/4" cubes

1 smoked ham hock

1 T. olive oil

The rest of the ingredients for the cassoulet:

1 garlic clove

2 legs duck confit, remove and save some of the confit fat, remove skin (discard), pull meat from bones

1/2 lb. garlic sausage, cut into 1/2" slices (about 3 sausages)

4 cups very course breadcrumbs or croutons (I cut up stale bread, toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper, dry it out in a low oven for half an hour, then crush into rough breadcrumbs.)

Cook the beans:

• Bundle the parsley, bay leaf, rosemary, thyme, celery, and leek with kitchen string.

• Heat olive oil in large pot. Add salt pork and cook until golden (about 5 minutes). Add the pork shoulder and brown on all sides (about 8 minutes).

• Add the remaining ingredients to the bean pot: the bundled herbs, onion half with whole clove, carrot, tomatoes and their juice, ham hock, and the soaked beans. Add enough cold water to cover by 1 to 2 inches (about 8 cups). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until beans are tender but not falling apart (40 to 50 minutes). (I used a pressure cooker to make the beans and it only took 14 minutes.)

Prepare the cassoulet—preheat the oven to 300°:

• When the beans are done, discard the onion, carrot, and herb bundle. Transfer the ham hock to a cutting board and remove the meat when it is cool enough to handle. Dice the meat and return it to the bean pot. (I read another recipe that had you puree the meat with a garlic clove to make a paste, then stir it into the beans.)

• Use the confit duck fat to saute the sausage pieces just until browned on each side. Set aside.

• Rub the cut side of a piece of garlic over inside of a dutch oven. Use a slotted spoon to transfer half of the beans to the dutch oven, spreading it evenly.

• Arrange the sausage and duck confit on top of the beans and cover with the remaining beans. Snug the ingredients and smooth the top.

• Add cooking liquid to almost cover the beans but not quite. Reserve the remaining cooking liquid. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook, uncovered, for 2 hours. Check every 30 minutes and add more cooking liquid as needed to keep the level just below the surface. Do not stir.

• After the cassoulet has cooked for 2 hours, arrange the breadcrumbs over the surface. Cook another 1 to 1 1/2 hours until beans are tender.

Cahors is the recommended wine for cassoulet. Our guests brought a salad and glazed carrots as a side dish. Creme brulee and brandy were the perfect ending to the meal, though no one could move from the dinner table.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it is a winter necessity at least once a year. Believe it or not, this is a fairly quick rendition of the dish—I've made the recipe from the Silver Palate New Basics cookbook and it took two days. This recipe is from an old Martha Stewart Living article I happened upon.

Signing off

Who knew that when I signed up for an Online Marketing class and Magazine Editing I would spend all my time writing. It has been my most challenging term in graduate school and a kick in the pants.

The Online Marketing class is a great addition to the publishing program. Who can doubt that the market is going online in droves, and online is where we must talk to our audience. Learning about all the new and emerging technologies is mind boggling, but once you get your toes wet, it seems slightly less intimidating.

I now believe that the online strategy must be central in any marketing effort. Marty's class has introduced new ways to think about selling books to the public, and we, as students, need to figure out how to apply those ideas to Ooligan Press.

Despite the bad news about GACP and our shaky distribution, I feel optimistic about Ooligan's future. We have two books coming out that could gain a good deal of attention for the press—Oregon at Work and A Heart For Any Fate. The New York Times has requested a review copy of OAW, and Booklist has asked for HAF—both huge accomplishments.

Also, Ooligan Press recently won a grant to produce a guide to sustainable printing from Portland State University. With a new direction towards sustainability in publishing, the press could become a leader in finding greener solutions in printing and distribution. I believe that smaller, less centralized publishers and sustainable production are key to the future of the industry, and Ooligan is moving in the right direction.

I have a lot of faith in the enthusiasm and determination of the students in the program, and I appreciate the wisdom and leadership of the faculty. Whatever twists and turns await the industry and Ooligan Press, the new talent coming out of the publishing program will be able to handle it.

Peering through the shroud

After this week's bad news about the GACP layoffs and Ooligan's uncertain book distribution channels, it is difficult to see past the next few months and the critical launches that are in jeopardy. I think Oregon at Work and A Heart For Any Fate should be the turning point for Ooligan's future as a viable press, but this turn of events is another huge roadblock to our success.

Maybe the layers of middle men and markups is part of the reason the industry is falling apart. It has gotten too bloated and slow and unresponsive to survive. Maybe the industry is going through a necessary shedding of excess that will bottom out, leaving a core ready to be rebuilt by a new generation of publishers.

As Jeffrey Selin of the Writers' Dojo said, there will always be a market for stories—people are consuming more content than ever before. We just don't know what the format will be.

I love Brent's imagined 100mile Law, where a future Congress has limited the production and transport of books to a 100-mile radius. You don't have to look much further than the trend toward buying local, sustainable food to see that the idea could spread to other industries as the world's resources become more expensive and scarce.

I'm rooting for small, independent publishers to take over the industry. Behemoth corporations cannot respond to rapid changes in today's marketplace—there are too many layers. Instead, smaller publishers can focus on regional titles and roll out nationally as word of mouth (online interest) spreads. Books will be printed in smaller quantities, producing less waste.

There's every reason to expect improvements in book production—it's already happening with POD and digital short-run. I don't believe the physical book will ever be replaced by a digital format—humans are collectors and like to be surrounded by their treasure. But I can imagine books being printed with nonpolluting, sustainable materials that eliminate much of the toxins from production. And as the printing industry also becomes more nimble and compact, printing will be done locally instead of being shipped around the world.

In ten years, writers will still be slaving over stories, and people will clamor for them whether they are presented in book form or on the screen. I would like to see a huge network of small publishers delivering those books to the public in a responsible, efficient way. And I hope that great writing will always find its audience. I believe that it will.

All a twitter over social networking

Just when I join the club, it becomes uncool. Apparently, social networking has been deemed a waste of time and a detriment to human relationships. Or so say a number of articles that I came across this week. Has anyone else noticed a surge in commentary on this subject recently?

Something about Twitter seems to really piss people off. The Daily Beast ran two articles deriding the network this past week.

In "Twitter Jumped The Shark This Week," Mark McKinnon argues that the use of social networking has spun out of control. He calls the onslaught of emerging networks a "social media arms race."

McKinnon believes that building huge networks of friends does not improve "meaningful communication." Instead, it robs people of quality time they could be investing in those who are truly important in their lives.

He also speculates that, since members of Congress have jumped on the band wagon—twittering during President Obama's speech this week—its days of being the new, hip thing are over.

His colleague at The Daily Beast, Lee Woodruff, didn't have anything nicer to say in her article, "Let's Stop The Twitter Madness."  She wonders, who has time for this? If you are sending, reading, or replying to Twitter messages, isn't there something else you should be doing?

An article in this week's Economist put the idea of social networking into perspective. Those guys are such smarty pants—they actually applied a scientific theory to the debate.

In a nutshell, they asked the in-house sociologist at Facebook to "crunch some numbers" to determine the average size of member networks and the average number of frequent interactions within a member network.

The numbers supported the Dunbar theory—extrapolated from "the brain sizes and social networks of apes." The human brain can maintain a network of about 150 people (the Facebook study found the average friend network to be 120). But that most keep close interaction with only a handful of people. Again the Facebook numbers agreed—frequent interactions averaged about seven.

I agree with the criticisms of Twitter. In less than two months, I opened an account, checked in regularly, then deemed it ridiculous and closed my account. With Facebook, however, I'm just getting started. I only have 43 friends—far from average.

I may lose my fascination with all the random posts of acquaintances. But at the moment, I'm having fun. It provides endless entertainment when, yes, I should be doing something more productive.