I made ham for dinner on Easter (along with some major league lamb lollipops), And I have not been able to stop eating it since. I have been running somewhat of a ham-a-thon. My daughter loves it so I do make it every once in a while, but not that much, so it’s sort of special, but really people, someone needs to come over here and lock the fridge.

My mom and dad were both amazing cooks. While my mother’s fare was excellent Italian, with fresh vegetables smothered in garlic, fried and baked chicken, hand ground meat for burgers, thick pork chops, steak and seafood, my dad’s was, well, sort of everything. The guy was not conventional, and this unique non-conformity even showed up in his cooking. It was not unusual for him to bake bread with things like potatoes and raisins, rosemary, yogurt, and nuts. “Dad, what’s in this,” I would ask. “Aaaaaah, I don’t know, I threw in whatever was around,” he would bellow.” I half-expected a finger to appear in one of my bites, most of the time. He loved to get up in the middle of the night and fry up a steak. When I was a kid, I wanted Wonder bread and tuna fish casserole and hamburger helper and rice-a-roni, but my dad refused to allow processesd foods in the house, and made us eat whole wheat bread, plain yogurt and unprocessed cashews. I have to say, he was ahead of his time in the food department, but that didn’t do me any good as teenager hungering for the kind of junk my friends all got to eat. And I won’t even get into my finicky eating habits as a child, which caused the dinner table to be a battleground most nights.

But back to the ham. It reminds me of my dad, because he liked it and made it often, although he would soak it for days to remove the salt and then put in cloves and coat it in some unknown conglomeration. But here’s the thing that I remember most. When I left for college, and then for my life in Boston, and I would come home, my dad would not only make ham for my visit, but also a turkey, a soup (I didn’t even try this, because, like his famous “throw in what you got” bread, I didn’t trust its contents) potatoes, a bread, a salad of beautiful tomatoes, and a laundry list of other dishes that lined the kitchen like servants. It would be like one of those revolving cake shows at New York diners, where desserts are on display. Literally, I would walk in the door and the food would come out, and he would want me to eat it all within seconds of putting down my suitcase. He would bring the ham to me, in the baking dish, to show me his masterpiece, like a five year old brings you a painting they have just completed. Sometimes he would cut a piece and literally put it up to my lips.

My dad and I never got along. When we tried to talk, our conversations lapsed into fighting and anger and slammed doors. But that ham, along with the parade of food he always made me for my every homecoming, was his way of telling me that he loved me. That bread, with the mystery contents, was his way of showing me that he had he had worked hard to make me something. Something especially for me. The amount of food, enough for a small midwestern town, made for a girl who was careful with her calories, and had picky tastebuds, was the only way he could show me he cared. And this Easter (and all day yesterday, and probably all day today until that salty pig is gone) I tasted his love. With a little mustard, and a little sadness. I am grateful for all that food, dad. I got the message.