Giving up on religion in fourth grade after studying the children’s crusades, I have come to enjoy the High Holiday’s from a culinary respect. Although not as significant as Christmas or Thanksgiving, Easter is certainly nothing to Passover; not the Jewish holiday I’m talking pork.

Being fromCaliforniathe traditional Easter meal revolved around a delicious spiral sliced ham, drowning in a bourbon glaze. These days my favorite pork product is a slow cook pork butt. I usually slow roast the PB over a low and slow mesquite BBQ. It works best to do the indirect method and bath the pork in a dark beer, brown sugar and dry bbq rub. This is going to take a while, like all day, depending on size. If you’re going to all this trouble do two and freeze the other one. Once the pork is cooked you can make pulled pork sandwiches, tamales or in our case today enchiladas with mole sauce. The Aztec were famous for their mole and the secret is pumpkin seeds and chocolate. Ingredients are 5 ancho chilies, 3 dried New Mexico or guajillo chilies, stemmed and seeded ,2 dried chilies negros stemmed and seeded, 1/3 cup sesame seeds, plus 1 tablespoon for garnish, 3/4 teaspoon anise seeds, 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, 2 cloves, 12 black peppercorns, One 1/2 -inch cinnamon stick, 5 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening, 2 1/2 tablespoons raisins, 20 whole almonds, 1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds,1 corn tortilla, quartered, 5 medium plum tomatoes, 5 garlic cloves, unpeeled, 1 small onion, quartered, 5 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth , 3 1/4 ounces Mexican chocolate, coarsely chopped, Salt and freshly ground pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro. Soak the chilies, toast the seeds and spices, sauté together add the broth. From here you can pour sauce over enchiladas and bake or use as base for chicken mole or a pork mole stew.

The secret to both of these recipes is time, the longer the better. While your pork is smoking and your mole simmering it may be worth a look at our listings and decide if this is the time to make your move on some property in theSan Juan Islands. It appears that the market is heating up with 25 properties pending or contingent versus a norm of 12-14. 16 properties between 50K-500K, 5 properties between 500K-800K and 4 around 1mm. We are hearing good things from our office inSeattleabout multiple offers and properties getting full price offers the day they hit the market.

The ferry has been full this weekend, the flowers are starting to bloom and it looks like a good year for real estate in the San Juan Islands.

Cassoulet is originally from Castelnaudary in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the south of France. The dish traditionally consists of white haricot beans and a variety of meats. The Cassoulet is always slow cooked and will have at least a few meats like pork, sausage, duck, goose and lamb along with onions, carrots, garlic and fresh herbs. Originally a peasant food, the Cassoulet was added to, as leftovers became available. You can still go to Le Central restaurant in San Francisco and order their Cassoulet that was started over 38 years ago. They continue to add more white beans, wine, meats and fresh herbs daily to their original started some 14 thousand days ago.

When I make Cassoulet I soak my beans overnight. I then start with the onions, carrots and garlic in a pan until the onions are translucent. I then add in the beans, crushed tomatoes and herbs (parsley, bay leaves, cloves, pepper corns and thyme). I usually will grill assorted meats on the BBQ to get the smokey flavor that would come from cooking in a cast iron pot on a fire. Chop up the meat and add to the mixture and simmer as long as possible. I tend to add red wine and bullion to bring out the flavors. Each Cassoulet is different so feel free to add your own favorites. I have found that leeks are a nice addition and even a bit of duck pate in case you don’t have leftover duck in the fridge.

The Cassoulet should be served with a simple green salad, lots of crusty French bread an adequate supply of red wine. Since I now know what is for dinner and it is starting to get late I may have to cheat time a bit today. The bottom line here is start your veggies, fire up the grill and once the vegetables sweat, add good canned white beans, tomatoes and fresh herbs, while this is simmering go out and grill your meat to rare, chop up and add to you stew. Try to simmer for at least an hour. The best thing about this is, your left over’s will be better later in the week.

The sun is out again, I’m off to the store. I hope you enjoy this classic comfort dish. Salute!