The
most important thing to remember when you are entertaining is that you can
never make too much food. Particularly if you are preparing something for that
“special person” in your life. It may seem like a trivial or pointless thing to
mention as an introduction to a recipe, but how many times have we ended an
evening “wanting more”? I always think that even if we have to spend a little
extra time and effort when we are preparing something it is always worth it to
see that that “special someone” is satisfied. I call this, half-jokingly, “good
kitchen manners”. We all know what good table manners are, and we should, I
believe, apply the same strict standards to things we make for other people to
enjoy. The worst thing we can do is to leave our loved ones disappointed. And
even if something is left over when everyone is finished you can always find a
good use for it. With a little imagination.
The
next thing that is really fundamental are the utensils that one uses. I have
been in so many kitchens throughout this great country of ours, not just here
in Oregon, and I have seen things that really shocked me. What’s the point, I
sometimes ask myself, what’s the point of having a genuine oil-painting in your
dining-room, or an Italian mahogany table, if you aren’t prepared to shell out
a hundred bucks to buy a complete set of working utensils to use with either
fish or meat dishes? Nobody eats an oil-painting, I always think.
Your
knives particularly should be kept in separate locations, ideally, if you have
a large kitchen, in drawers marked “fish”, “meat” etc., and should always be
spotlessly cleaned after you have finished cutting and carving, ready to be
used next time. When you are about to start cooking is not the time for you to
be distracted by the fact that your knives and things look like they need a
good wash, or even a rinse.
And
now on to our recipe for this month. March is a funny month usually. In most
states we are still trying to recover from the bitterness of the winter, but
there is often that touch of gold in the day that reminds us that the worst is
over, and that the warm weather is not too far away. That’s why I like, on
those special Sundays, to cook something which gives us a little of that summer
feeling, and that’s why I’ve chosen Jamaican roast ham.
I admit
that I have a special soft spot for this meal, as it was the first real dish I
made for my husband, and I remember that so well because it was the first time
he had bought me flowers. I always think that a man never looks so attractive
as when he is carrying flowers. No Italian suit, or after-shaves or suntans can
make a man make a woman feel so in love with her man as when she sees him
holding out a bunch of roses to her. Even if we know he just picked them up at
the local Walmart’s or 7-11.
For
this recipe, for two persons, you will need:
1 ripe egg-plant
4 oz Jamaican red pepper (or allspice)
2 eggs (preferably free-range or K-Mart’s)
2 tablespoons brown cane sugar
1 small pineapple
½
pound brown rice
¼ pound peanut butter (Skippy’s)
8 chestnuts (in shells)
1 pint milk
½ pound guaneto gums (in their shoes)
1 whole pound leg of Virginia ham
¼ pound cooking toffee
mange-touts (tinned not frozen)
1 dozen red roses
lemon leaves
salt and pepper
Scrape
all roughness off the outside of the leg of ham using a sharpened ham knife and
rub the surface with a little milk and salt. Stand on a tray for 1 hour. Mix
and mash the guaneto gums with the chestnuts and mange-touts, adding salt and
butter to taste. Leave to stand near an open window for a half hour, or, if you
live in one of the southern states, stand in the fridge for ten minutes until
the guanetos feel solidified. If you can’t get fresh guanetos near you, you can
always try unripe guavas. Feel free to experiment with anything acid-based, I
always say.
Melt
the toffee, and mix with the eggs, peanut butter and allspice. In the meantime
slice and stir-fry the eggplant, adding pepper and salt to taste. Do not allow
the eggplant to brown, avoiding that “bitter” taste it sometimes acquires. (If
it accidentally gets overdone and turns bitter, add a touch of brown sugar to a
tablespoon of water, and apply this to the brown area.) Note: if the eggplant
you buy is slightly scorched when you open it, you can always make it fresh
again by leaving it overnight in a brown paper bag with an apple, just like you
do with hard avocados.
Prepare
the rice in your normal way, and set your oven to “hot” or “max.” Stroke the
ham with your sharpest knife, making slight cuts all along the upper surface.
Place a pineapple slice in each “groove”, and baste the whole ham liberally
with the toffee mix. Place the basted ham in the oven on “hot” or “max.” and
leave for one hour, after which you should add the guaneto mash, spreading it
around the leg on the tray. Cook the eggplants separately, and serve on the
side.
On
your serving and carving dish, make a bed using the rest of the pineapple and
the rice, which should be crispy if possible. As soon as the meat starts to
turn golden and the blood and juices slipping out of the cuts start to form
slow-moving crusts then remove from the oven, decorate with the lemon leaves,
and serve still sizzling.
This
recipe is practically fool-proof, but always remember my by-line. When in
doubt, improvise. Sometimes things don’t go exactly the way we expect them to,
or would like them to, but -- hey! -- nobody’s perfect. When this happens, it
is essential for you to have a good plan to deal with the thing that most often
goes wrong, and that is how to dispose of the body.
Because
sometimes you might find out that your “special person” isn’t working late
nights at the office, but is screwing around with that girl who works at the
7-11 who looks like Madonna. And when that happens, and you find out about it
because you had to rush out to buy another eggplant because the one you got was
scorched on the inside and you saw the two of them together, that’s when you
know that you did the right thing when you bought a nine-hundred dollar set of
Japanese knives.
So,
if you have been careful enough to make very thin hairline incisions around,
say, the neckline or perhaps the abdomen using an Osachi and perhaps only one
or two plunge-thrusts in the lower back area, then, after you have rubbed the
wounds with the milk and salt mix, changed the body’s clothes and washed your
knives carefully, then you should rub the lemon leaves over any skin which is
showing, as after about a half hour this will return “living color” to the
surface for about a day or two. Use hot egg-plant pith to cauterize any open
wounds, taking care not to allow any juice to be left on the skin, as this will
slowly turn green due to temperature loss.
The
stench that comes from rotting innards is often a dead giveaway for people to
find out you have a dead body inside the house, so use the chestnuts to make a
mash, and fill the mouth and anal cavity with it. This will temporarily prevent
the releasing of any “human smell”, in much the same way that chestnuts in a drawer
are used to keep moths away from linens and cottons. Mother Nature knows her
stuff, I always say!
Finally,
take two guaneto gums and slice down the middle. Rub the juice of one gum over
each of the eyeballs and eyelids. The acid in the gums (if you have bought them
in season, and not like those you sometimes find in less careful marts) will
make the eyelids contract occasionally, producing a sensation something like
rapid eye movement when we are asleep, and as the acid eventually filters into
the eyeballs it will produce a momentary and sporadic “jerking” of the decaying
eye-globe, causing a movement similar to blinking.
Find
a not so well-lit corner of the kitchen, for example, and place the body in a
life-like position, possibly holding a newspaper in one hand or with a book on
its lap. At this time of year, this should give you about two or maybe three
days cover before the body begins to start decomposing in earnest. When you are
setting the roses in a vase, it is always a good idea to add an aspirin to the
water. I always think it is such a shame to let roses wilt before their time;
after all, they are there to remind you of that “special person” in your life.
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