The Ham
Uncle Rob
There is a sliver of space within big families occupied by people who love you unconditionally, but get to be more fun than parents. They don’t come with the expectations of well intentioned grandparents. The unicorns of the extended family-- aunts and uncles.
I love the Tar Heels and everything Ruth Bader Ginsberg ever wrote. My uncle Rob was a diehard Duke basketball and Fox news fan. We both love John Prine, Willie Nelson and Tom T. Hall. We both love “street porching” and Ham Dinner. We didn’t spend a lot of time in that space that popular opinion today would dictate sits between us.
Rob’s grandchildren call him Ba. This has given rise to a number of “Ba-isms” the rest of the family has adopted and turned into a constant source of banter, competition and tradition.
First, street porching is defined by the presence of a porch (naturally) and usually an adirondack chair and a drink, but those are not required. A well curated playlist or dog also up the ante. You can street porch alone, or together. Or, together apart, via a text message displaying your street porch view. I’ve received many a text of a prime street porch session on a Thursday afternoon while I’m still on a zoom call at 2pm. You get the idea.
Beyond street porching, we have the art of out-ordering as another ongoing competition. Did the fried oysters you chose beat the pork belly? If not, you lose! At least for the appetizer round. You might get another shot to redeem yourself on an entree.
One of the many things I loved about my uncle Rob: his ability to fold levity into the vernacular of everyday life and to create tradition.
In 2010, my sister was struggling at college when she received an email subject line: Rob’s Secret. Complete with a scanned copy of a transcript from 1960, it read as follows. “Kirk, I know you have been under a lot of hostile fire lately and thought I could share some humor and maybe even shed some light. I have enclosed a copy of my official transcript from my first year and one summer school back in the day.” His GPA was a cool 0.485, which he explained away to his mom with an inverse scale where 4 was bad and 0 was ideal.
As the email goes on to share, that same year of his failing grades, Rob’s parents died in a car accident. The guardrails were gone. With the help of a few good friends, some time in the Air Force and the good luck of meeting my aunt Cat, he regained his footing. But he didn’t forget the feeling of being without anyone to lean on. And he made sure that no one he loved ever had to experience that lack of a net. When my mom talks about her time in Chapel Hill, it always includes the story of being a broke college student and opening up an envelope with a crisp $20 bill from her cool brother-in-law. If he was in town for work, he would always take her out to dinner, reliably clad in cowboy boots.
Families evolve and along with them, the traditions. My mom’s side of the family doesn’t celebrate Christmas together anymore. There's no animosity (beyond basketball season), but everyone settled into their own individual tradition after my grandparents passed. Instead, we celebrate Ham Dinner, another Ba-ism of sorts. It’s my favorite day of the year. It’s not Christmas, and it’s not New Years, it’s just Ham Dinner. It falls generally between Christmas and New Years, or whenever people can get together. With this new tradition, no one is juggling the second or third meal at their in-law’s house. Uncle Rob, outlaw (our family term for “married-in”) turned patriarch of the family, always cooked the ham.
After law school, I left North Carolina and moved to Boston. It was time for a bit of breathing room away from familial expectations. As productive as the move was, at times it was lonely getting set up in a new city. Instead of being asked when are you getting married or when are you having kids, the most triggering question for me was, “So, when are you moving home?” Boston, and the space between well intentioned expectations, was good for me. I got the elbow room to figure out who I was and what I wanted my adult life to look like. But I’m much too proud, or stubborn, or both, to ever acknowledge that moving to a new city without family and few friends was very hard at times. Rob was always in touch with a moment of levity here or there.
When Rob was in the middle of chemo at Duke, I was working in a hat shop for fun so I shipped him a gorgeous navy blue fur felt Stetson. In reply, he shipped me back his entire collection of records from the 70’s. Lots of Tom T Hall and bands I didn’t know yet. On another occasion I jabbed back with, Island Creek Oysters straight from Duxbury, Mass to Warsaw, NC where Rob lived.
On an especially gray day in Boston, I received a heavy package. I opened it to find an entire dry cured country ham. Along with it, another of Rob’s secrets, the coveted recipe for cooking an entire country ham. Trying my hand at the tradition, I filled my tiny apartment with the handful of friends I’d made to date and cooked the whole ham. Of course, they loved it.
Rob’s Secret:
To prep: preferably dry cured ham as opposed to salt cured. Soak the ham in cold water overnight changing water 2-3 times.
To cook: Use a large roasting pan. Take two large pieces of aluminum foil and join together putting in the pan and put the ham in the aluminum foil cupping it so you can add ingredients. Make sure you put the ham in skin side up. Add the two cups of orange juice or ginger ale, and close the aluminum foil around the ham. Bake at 325 degrees approximately 18 minutes per pound. A good sign that it is cooked is that it has shrunk some from the bone.
To finish: When the ham is cooked, peel back the foil and let cool 30-40 minutes. When cool, trim the skin off leaving a thin layer of fat. Score the fat in diamond shapes, place a whole clove in each of the diamond intersections. Sprinkle or coat generously with brown sugar, place the two pineapple slices on the top and return to oven. Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes keeping close watch so that it doesn’t burn. Fat will crisp up without burning.
To serve: Remove from pan, place on platter, remove the cloves, cool down for a few minutes before slicing. Slice thinly. Enjoy!
My secret: You don’t have to agree on politics or basketball to have a special bond. And if you find yourself unsure what to say, try mailing them an entire ham. Oh, and GO TO HELL DUKE!
