I Had to Change the Title

This was going to be my Easter post. No pop culture, no politics, no crabbing, no grumpy old man stuff. I had cute pictures all ready to go, a great recipe for Sunday dinner, and one of my patented "It ain't so bad/enjoy your blessings" themes. Then work happened. It happened in the day, afternoon, and evening. It happened Friday night. It happened on the weekend. It almost happened on Easter Sunday. It happened so long and so hard that I had to do the smell test on my clothes Saturday for the first time since I've been out of collage. (If you have to do the smell test on your clothes a grown up knows it's already too late for your reputation and your dignity.)

Oh my God Man! At least have mercy on the rest of us!

 Then as this week unfolded I figured I'd have time to blog up, do a wash, exercise (speedo worthy by June, What? It could happen) and cook that Easter meal I promised my Mom. Then work happened. It happened in the day, afternoon, and evening. It's going to happen Friday night. It will happen this coming weekend. It's happening so long and so hard that by Sunday after Easter Sunday my Condo won't pass the smell test. I can't serve dinner here. Disappointing kids is not cool, letting down your better half is a shame, screwing the pooch when your friends are counting on you is for losers, but disappointing an 80 year old Mom is...? Don't say it.

I am sooo sorry Mom.

Then I realized that My Mom loves me no matter what. That the reason she is disappointed is because she really, really wants to see me. Wow, I have a fan. I love having a fan. I realized it wasn't about going to see her on Easter, it was about going to see her period. Cooking a fancy Easter supper ( and I can promise you it was going to be awesome!) is fine, but for Mom my time was the most important gift. Gift? She cleaned me every day until I was old enough to stop crapping myself. She put me to bed and made me ginger-ale and cinnamon toast after I blew lunch on her favorite chair( I was a very young 23). When I was 8 and had watched too much creature feature on Saturday night all 5'2" of her protected me from Frankenstein. A gift of my time? I don't have enough time to make things even. Still I guess I'm driving to VT this Sunday whether  I'm tired or not.

Big holidays, expensive gifts, fancy vacations... wouldn't our better halves, wouldn't our kids, wouldn't our brothers and sisters, wouldn't our Moms just prefer our time? Or I guess you could go with a fresh ham!

Hey, even if I missed Easter I still need to cook it.

You can find fresh ham in the regular super market. Maybe. You skip the section where the real hams are displayed and find the bin where all the odd sketchy bits of pork are stored. It'll look like a roast beef gone bad with a bone sticking out of it. The package will probably say picinic ham. It is not a pork butt which, while delicious, is not Eastery and requires very different cooking methods. A good butcher will let you order a fresh ham because that is what good butchers do. Find both, a fresh ham and a good butcher.

1. Remove the ham from the package, yes that is skin covering the ham. Cracklings my friend, cracklings.
2. Take a razor knife and score the skin in a cross hatch pattern. Do not cut through the under lying fat into the meat.
3. Now remove the leaves from 4 or 5 sprigs of rosemary and chop it fine.
4. 2 sage leaves chopped fine would be an excellent addition.
5. 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Chop them fine. Add salt, then chop again. Crush with the broad side of the knife then chop again. Keep going until you have a paste.
6. Add the chopped herds and chop/crush again.
7. Mix the whole mess with half a stick of unsalted butter, Mmmm butter!
8. Smear it all over the ham working it into the cross hatching.
9. Refrigerate over night.
10. Pull the ham out of the fridge and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
11. Heat the oven to 500 degrees.
12. Place the ham on a rack in a roasting pan. You want something deep to catch the rendered fat.
13. Give it 20 minutes at 500 degrees then immediately turn the oven down to 300 degrees.
14. 2 Hours should be enough, but this is a fatty cut of meat and you really can't hurt it by going longer.
15. Take it out of the oven and let it rest before carving.
16. Fight over the cracklings.

I would serve this with roasted asparagus, grilled polenta with wild mushroom ragu, and a biscuit shortcake with real whipped cream. The whole thing will taste like spring.