Fine Dining
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
Mary and I aren’t particularly big eaters, although you wouldn’t know that by looking at me. A whole chicken will last us days. By the end of the week the fridge is so filled with chicken left-overs we spend hours deciding whether we can take a run at the damned stuff one more time or whether to dump what’s left into the biweekly waste disposal bag.
Almost everything we buy pre-made is too much for one meal and is guaranteed to be on the menu for next day’s lunch and maybe supper. So we rarely buy large size anything.
However, every once in a while we see something advertised that seems like a really good buy and think maybe we should scoop it up and cash in on a bargain.
Back in early February, Costco offered its clientele a golden dining opportunity, and for us dinner for several weeks, and maybe months. It was an 8-10Kg Iberico Bellota Ham for the rock-bottom price of $849.99, a saving of 300 bucks. How could anyone turn down an opportunity like that?
We are fond of ham, not exactly in love with it, but we find it quite tasty at times, especially with Dijon mustard and maybe a dash of Miracle Whip on freshly baked bread. We may have to forgo the baked bread since the last time Mary baked anything it was to celebrate the U.S. moon landing back on July 20th 1969. (I didn’t know her then but I remember reading an article in the Toronto Star about a house fire on Milverton Boulevard that very day. The baker got carried away by the TV coverage of the event and forgot about the oven.) It was obviously a traumatic experience for her. The instructions for operating our oven are still in the original package and quite visible through the crystal-clear glass on the never-opened oven door.
A ham-bone that size would weigh anywhere from 17 to 22 pounds and as you can imagine would keep us going until the fall and maybe longer. Of course we will have to allow for the leg bone but we can make soup out of it or a decorative centre-piece for the dining room table.
Come to think about it, it could also be made into a weapon. Isn’t there a story in the Bible about some strongman named Samson who had a big jaw and bit the ass out of a thousand Philadelphians?
A giant hambone would be just fine for the two of us, but what if we had company? Our friends won’t eat just anything, they are connoisseurs, a word I had to look up to find out how to spell and it still doesn’t look right. For cultured diners like them Costco has ground Kangaroo meat, or will have once they catch it. The big problem with roo burgers is keeping them on the plate and off the ceiling. Or if the connoisseur would like to live even more dangerously they offer Wild Boar. In both cases I would imagine for safety reason, Costco should make sure they are dead before delivery.
I know it sounds stupid but somehow eating kangaroo meat seems barbaric. It would be like Roy and Dale having Trigger for Sunday dinner.
I have to admit I am not a hunter. In fact I suspect hunters are just a generation away from Alley Oop and should be turned loose in the forests during hunting season with nothing but a bottle of whiskey and an axe. (If you don’t know who Alley Oop is your mommy didn’t read the comics to you when you were a child.)
I don’t care for venison, I don’t know why, probably because the Fosters were city folks and thought venison steaks might be sliced from Bambi’s bum. I once had a bear steak given to me and kept in the freezer for five years. When it thawed it went after the cat.
I was in a restaurant in English River* years ago and there was a moose head over the door to the kitchen, the owner, a cousin of my Dad’s, said it was placed there at the exact height of the moose when he was alive. Hence I won’t eat moose either since I was told as a child never to eat anything larger than a City of Toronto streetcar.
* English River is not all that far from Frog Rapids, that should narrow the restaurant down for you.
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