A Sexy Woman, Coke and Pot

The perfect Christmas, no?

Okay, let us begin at the beginning, as opposed to somewhere in the middle, maybe? I dunno. I suppose we never begin at the beginning, as that would involve saying "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth . . ." which isn't even an accurate translation. It is "In the beginning of God's creation of the Heavens and the Earth . . ." Which makes a lot of sense, actually - notice that, in Genesis 1, there are plenty of things which already exist; there is water and the water has a face for the Spirit of God to move over.

Hey, it's Christmas. Let's keep the Christ in Christmas, shall we?

Actually, most of the liberals have managed to keep Christ in Christmas in a manner not dissimilar to some kind of Soviet gulag. Their cry appears to be "Keep Christ in Christmas and don't let Him out!"

Scum.

Anyway, this is tangential, but Liza is going home to pick up a Christmas present for someone and so I have time. Where was I?

Talking about the creation narrative in Genesis.

And on the eighth day, God created Nigella Lawson.



Let's just digress (again) for a few moments. Gentlemen, I give you perhaps the nearest damn thing to perfection. It is Nigella-freaking-Lawson. Let's count the ways;

1. She is simply stunningly beautiful
2. She is stunningly simply beautiful
3. She has a figure which, and let's face it, is awesome is every respect. There is something there. She is not a bumpy twig, nor is she out of proportion thanks to a scalpel and silicone. There is not a single straight line in her body.
4. Her voice is like blood-heat chocolate and cream in a lead crystal glass. It is registered as a Weapon of Mass Distraction with the Geneva Convention.
5. She eats. She drinks. You get the impression you could take her out to dinner and she would be the one saying "The fried calamari with the lemon melted-butter look good, but . . . well, the mussels in cream and white wine smell fabulous. Erm . . . well, both. Ooooh! You have Belgian heavy ale to go with that - yes, a glass. No, just a pint. The French onion soup, baked cheese on the top . . . yes, the bread basket would be lovely. For the main course . . . . the steak Diane, blue, with the avocado-stuffed mushrooms and the breaded asparagus. What? Oh the mashed potatoes - could I get an extra side of those as well, please? Of course you should load them - double cream, please. Just the Chardonay, actually - I wouldn't want to be a pig. Dessert? Hmm - that gateaux looks good, but a little skinny bit like that really isn't worth getting the plate dirty for. Oh, you're too kind. Make sure I get a corner, whipped cream and chocolate flakes. Is the cheese tray good? Oh, okay, well - yes, I'll take that too. Coffee to finish. No, no sugar - watching my weight, you know? What are you having?"
6. She treats food and cooking as only very slightly less erotic than sex.

All of this combines to make her one of the most attractive women in the universe. She is beautiful, confident in her beauty and - most importantly - not worried about weighing a few pounds more than she "needs" (and for "needs" read : "is told to by the media machine".)

So, what does this have to do with Christmas?

Firstly, does it need to have anything to do with Christmas? It is Nigella 'The Goddess" Lawson.

However, there is a relevancy here. For previous Christmas meals here in the United States we have had goose (which was a superb success for everyone except a single individual, who always - whenever we get together for a meal, he always specifies "No Goose!") and then beef brisket. This year, I decided to make ham and not merely any old ham. Oh, no, Sir! I decided to make the Nigella Lawson Ham Cooked In Coca-Cola.

Liza (who, despite being dark and curvy like Nigella Lawson and Monica Bellucci and other women whose names I won't mention as it is to much shame I know them at all, does not appear to trust the Latter-Day Hestia's culinary skills) was leery of such a thing. She has pretty much been a Senate Republican here, but my skills are greater than Harry Reid's (also, I am not an arse) and I was able to defeat her filibuster. I did, however, make bipartisan concessions (see the above "not being an arse" thing) and agreed to make a Nigella Lawson ham (insert your own jokes about good, thick, meaty thighs here) and a standard Dearborn ham.

(Can we just have a moment to appreciate the irony of having a ham named after the city which, outside of the Middle East, has the highest population of Muslims? I totally LOLed.)

We went to Steiner's Meat Market (which is recommended by a friend, and supplies the fine meat (fnar-fnar) ) and ordered the ham. Okay, here is where my rant begins.

Two nations divided by a common language, huh? No, one nation hamstrung by its inability to actually use the language we gave them. Here is something really simple; an animal which eats whatever it likes and roots in its own muck is called a Democrat pig. The meat from this animal is called pork when it is just hacked off the animal. Then, when you subject the meat to certain curing processes, it is called ham or bacon.

Not in America, it seems. Oh, no. In America, land of the free, home of the brave, and place without any sense of using language in a significant manner, the meat of the pig taken from the leg is called a ham. Not "a pork leg". No, it is a ham. Even when it is not cured.

I have no idea why a piece of pig elsewhere is not called a ham, nor indeed how one differentiates between a cured and uncured pig leg. Don't ask me these questions. I just live in America, I don't understand how it works. In that respect, my life is a lot like Congress.

So, we went to Steiner's Meat Market and said "We would like a regular spiral cut ham, of the Dearborn variety, please, Mister Meat-Man." And lo, the Meat-Man did say this would be no problem. And then, lo, I did ask of him, "Can I get a raw ham?" Meaning, "Can I purchase a piece of meat which is identical to the thing I have previously ordered less than an instant ago and which I also called 'ham' except that it is NOT cooked, i.e. it is raw?"

And he says "A fresh ham? Sure."

So, we order this thing. And Liza is there with me. And she has read the recipe. And she says nothing with all her hard-won American-knowledge. And we leave and we are ignorant and the tidal wave builds.

And then a couple of days ago Liza reads the recipe and says "Hang on, this needs a raw ham!" And I say "That is what I ordered, you know." And she says "But we are getting a fresh ham!" And I say "But . . . but . . . what?" And then she explains that a fresh ham is completely indistinguishable from pork and is, in fact, just pork.

And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So, I go on the internet (ah, internet, mother, father, secret lover, is there any problem you cannot solve?) and I find this recipe for home-curing a ham (that is, turning pork into ham, and not for turning a ham into a ham, because it can't be turned into ham if it is already ham, so it is not already ham, you numpty.)

We go and get the "ham" (read : "leg of pork") and it looks a lot like this;



This this is freaking huge. It really is. It is about a foot long and weights somewhere in the region of 9 lbs. Very scary.

Anyway, now I need to soak this thing - and also need to plan for the simmering of the meat so it gets to temperature (note; insert your own joke about "Nigella Lawson raises my meat's temperature" here.)

(Note about the note; insert your own joke about "Nigella Lawson" and "insert" here.)

There is no way in Hell this pork leg is fitting in the largest pot we have. We will obviously have to get a bigger pot, but - right now - I need to find some sort of container to fit this thing and several litres of brine.

Enter the shower, a scrubbing sponge, bleach, washing up liquid and a garbage can. Oh, God - I have all these items in a post with the words "meat", "insert", "pot", "coke" and "Nigella Lawson". My referral logs are scary enough as it is.

Anyway, I scrub the garbage can clean and shining, and then put the pork in it and pout cold, clear water over it until it is covered. This requires eight liters of water. I then pull the pork out, and work out how much salt and sugar I need to add (3 cups of salt, 4 cups of sugar.)

Okay, let me tell you this right now. If you dip a fresh piece of pork only recently cut from the oinking animal into water, various fats and proteins and whatnot sluice out of it and turn the water into a kind of vaguely milky murk. Exactly the same sort of vaguely milky murk as you get if you do not wash all the soap off.

I am absolutely certain I got all the soap off. I really am. But I still had visual doubts . . .

I then add in 3 cups of salt and 4 cups of sugar. Brown sugar. This makes it even murkier and tints it brown. It now looks like I washed muddy boots in soapy water . . . .

Into this, I put the ham.



and then I realize it is a good idea to refrigerate it. Well, actually, the Senate Republicans attempt another filibuster, but there are sufficient Blue Dog Democrats to get this one passed - Liza thinks we should put it in the fridge, even though it is very cool on the porch and it is ham sitting in salt and sugar.

Soooooo . . . I remove the vegetable trays and lowest shelf from the fridge and put a garbage can in the fridge. Those are words I never expected to have to type.



(Next to it is the other ham - you'd forgotten about it, hadn't you? Shame on you . . . )

Anyway, Liza and I then watch NCIS and go to bed.

The next morning we speak with my boss, Michael Voris, purveyor of fine red-meat rhetoric against hippies and scum, and at whose house we will be hosting the Christmas meal. Do you, we ask, have a large pot? A pot large enough for this vast ham?

Actually, Liza speaks with Mike, because I am in a meeting about designing a website for Agape Gifts. Mike then comes into my office and says "I am going out to get a pot" (insert your own joke here) "We will never be able to get a domestic pot, we will need some industrial thing."

I question this, saying unto Mike, "Boss, just before you go out and get a pot so large it could contain the Red Sea, remember that Liza is a woman and thus has no concept of size. She will have told you this ham is the size of Wisconsin, when, in fact, it is only about an inch too big to fit in the large pasta pot she owns." I pause. "She has, indeed, told you it is size of Wisconsin, has she not?"

Michael makes a face which indicates I know my wife far too well.

I continue. "So, before you go out and get some vast pot, remember this." Mike nods, and leaves.

Now, it seems that the size progression of pots is not (as you might have thought, if you think of such things) simply incremental. It is, in fact, subject to the fallacy of the beard - there does, in fact, come a point when the size of pots crosses some invisible threshold and, suddenly and without prior warning, what was a simple, regular, domestic pot which can be purchased in most stores suddenly becomes a professional, specialist, chef-exclusive item available only in certain stores.

So, Mike - ever inventive - goes to Holiday Market, a store he keeps afloat in the recession virtually single-handedly, and asks them "Do you have a large pot which we can rent?" This strikes the nice ladies at Holiday Market as strange, because they do not normally rent such things out (they do rent things like large chaffing dishes, serving trays, silverware etc. etc.) but not things for cooking. Still, she is inventive and just makes something up on the spot; $25 to rent a large pot.

Now, this is a large industrial cooking pot, not just something a little bigger than the pasta pot we have. Remember, we have crossed some invisible threshold here; we have crossed the Rubicon and the die is cast. We have a pot large enough to feed Caesar's army for the entire Gallic campaign.



Shown for scale; Liza and a lemon.

This pot is freaking huge, it really is. It is a gigantic thing which the four liters of Coca-Cola we have obtained will barely moisten. The ham will be lost inside it, it will swim in a lake of carbonated, caffeinated beverage. This is going to be like filming a remake of The Poseidon Adventure but with really gauche product placement.

And note, of course, that I have not really spoken of the Dearborn ham in this - nor, indeed and in fact, of the second stage of the cooking of Nigella's delicious gam, which is to stuff the meat in the oven after liberally coating it with mustard and sugar and then - with cloves - studding it for your pleasure.

Nor have I spoken of the various trimmings required for the meal - potatoes, vegetables, bread, sauces, chutneys, appetizers, etc. etc.

This is chaos in a sexy, sticky package just waiting to happen, I am sure you agree.

The insanity begins as it always does - late at night, in a cold and dark Church, with Midnight Mass. All is order and calm in the world, and then the savior is born and the peace and quiet of the universe is forever shattered.

And lo, a feast of meats previously forbidden to the Chosen People and spiced with the products of the Western empires is prepared in chaos and with much last minute worry.

Metaphors. They are where it's at.