Culinary Possibilities

Hank the ham debuted at Christmas dinner. Luke made the most apropos comment. He said, “This is great” and then ate for twenty minutes without saying a word. So, I guess we’ll be doing country ham again. Even the very weird “glaze,” which consisted of brown sugar, pepper, and corn meal (yes, cornmeal), was delicious. After the meal was over and I was safely in the kitchen where no one could see me (after all, to be in the kitchen means you will surely get stuck washing and drying china and silver, so on one goes there on purpose), I picked glaze off the leftover ham—it was that good. And I had it all to myself.

But there are other treats to be had in the Keller home. One needs simply to be open-minded towards culinary possibilities. For example, Jezebel likes to eat caladium. I had a lovely green and red caladium plant in front of the floor-length arched window of the living room. Jez ate it. Every beautiful leaf of it. I checked to make sure it wasn’t poisonous. It’s not. It just has an acid that burns the skin, especially the tender skin of the mouth. Apparently, Jezebel doesn’t care. Must be a masochistic streak in her.

The kids jumped to her defense and explained the Jezebel just destroyed the plant in order to better see out the window so she can keep watch for the Pomeranian devil. Maybe. So, I cut her some slack on that. After all, she was trying to protect us from the foofy incarnation of faux canine evil. That held water until she decided to eat my amaryllis. The amaryllis wasn’t in her way. And it wasn’t even tempting—they were just dry bulbs that I was trying to force to bloom. But I found her gnawing on the tiny buds of leaves coming out of the bulbs.

After a severe reprimand, she looked positively repentant. Until, Sunday when I was taking a nap. She must have snuck into the room using her infamous army crawl and made a beeline to the plant. Anyway, now I have to decide whether to put the bulbs out of their misery. I think it’s clear she has a thing for plants. I can live with that to a certain extent. But there are plants, and there are orchids. And if Jezebel ever even sniffs one of my orchids…