so much for kosher

Not that I had been seriously considering keeping kosher, but the thought has arisen from time to time. I was a strict vegetarian for years in my early to mid-twenties. I frequently think of going back to that, plus it’s fun looking for the kosher labels on products at the store. But keeping kosher, all the time?

Apparently, that won’t be happening any time soon.

My mother has invited me to her house for Christmas Eve dinner. She’s making a special cioppino — a tomato-based stew complete with fish, crab, shrimp, and clams. So no kosher Christmas there. Umm, assuming Christmas could ever be kosher.

The crowning glory, however, came in the form of a box delivered by UPS this afternoon. Shipped form Virginia, it was marked “highly perishable,” so I opened it immediately, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t another huge tub of pecans. Seriously, I used to receive impossibly large quantities of roasted pecans, in containers the size of my head. No one ever asked me if I even liked pecans. Kind of, on occasion, but really really not THAT much.

Good news! No pecans. Instead, my father had shipped me the Virginia Breakfast Sampler from Virginia Traditions ("Authentic Southern Smoked Meats, Seafood and Desert Specialties"). I laughed out loud as I pulled a package of sausage and two different kinds of bacon out of the box.

My Dad makes a mean breakfast. Seriously. When I was living in Richmond, it was always a treat to head over to his house Saturday or Sunday morning for homemade biscuits, eggs to order, every kind of breakfast meat you can imagine on the the griddle, and sometimes even fresh-squeezed juice, too. So I have no doubt of what my father was going after when he chose this gift for me. It’s his way of giving me Christmas breakfast, even on the other side of the country. It’s a very thoughtful gift, and I am genuinely touched by the arrival of this box of meat on my doorstep.

However, he and I are also very, very lucky that I’m not kosher. Not yet, anyway. Plus, I do enjoy pork. Now I’ve got plenty of bacon for making my Southern-style black-eyed peas and collard greens for New Year’s.