In Ham We Trust

Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my husband is a ham man.*

He reserves a fervent passion for ham that is well beyond the ken of most of us mere mortals. Last year, when Ben's mother asked me what he might like for Christmas, I told her, "Get him a ham." She stared at me doubtingly. "No really," I said. "Get him a ham. He'll love it."

My mother-in-law might have doubted my suggestion at first, but anyone who saw the gleam in Ben's eye when he saw that ham - an entire half leg, just for him - had to become a believer. Man, he loved that ham.

It lasted two entire weeks, even though any time you asked him what he wanted to eat, he'd immediately reply, "Ham." He slaved over the meat, carefully slicing off tender morsels for snacks and countless sandwiches, religiously rinsing and baptizing the cotton ham bag in a water and vinegar solution every few days before tucking the meat carefully back into the bag to be returned to the fridge. The day the last salty scrap was scraped from the bone was a black mark on his calendar.

Today as we were leaving the grocery store, I saw a sign at a local butcher's advertising Christmas hams. Resigning myself to the meat-filled fridge I knew lay in my future, I turned to Ben and asked him if he'd like to go order his ham. His head shot up, his eyes filled with a crazed gleam, and it took him about a millisecond to yelp, "YESI'llgoyouwatchthegroceries!" and tear off in the direction of the butcher's. A $10 deposit later and we have our names down for a juicy smoked ham that will arrive sometime later this month. Well, I say "we". I mean Ben.

Ham. It's what's for Christmas.

*Bonus points if you can name that movie.