I’m fixing to trim down a little.

I’m fixing to trim down a little.

My intention was to put the plan in motion directly after the new year began, but there was the matter of that big country ham that one of the boys gave me for Christmas, and I knew it would be wasteful if I didn’t eat that thing up before I seriously considered initiating any slimming down actions.

Plus, I didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings by not eating the ham, and besides, it only weighed about 25 pounds. I figured the most appreciative thing to do was to polish off that pig before I started pushing back from the table.

It was necessary to cut that bad boy in half in order to fit it into a pot to cook it. So I took a sharp butcher knife and a hacksaw to it and separated it into the shank and the butt halves. But before I boiled them I cut a few center cut slices out to fry up for breakfast.

I fried those center cuts up in a black iron skillet, slapped them in between a split biscuit and dipped it in the gravy. Most folks call it red eye gravy, when after you take the meat out of the skillet you add some water and a little coffee, but I call it red-neck au jus.

I was really anxious to get on about reducing my waistline, but after I had boiled up the two halves I sliced the meat up real nice and thin so I could start making sandwiches with it.

It took a long time to eat all that ham. After I got fatigued with eating it with biscuits and making sandwiches with it I ground up what was left and made some ham salad.

Now that I had properly disposed of all that ham I was prepared to get serious about taking my belt in by a couple of notches.

Well, I was, until I pulled out the meat drawer in the fridge and noticed I still had the hock from the shank half and the bone from the butt half of that ham. Plus, there was a baggie of nice cooking meat left, too.

Consequently, due to that old adage of “waste not-want not,” I had to waylay the weight loss project until I could properly dispose of the remnants of that ham.

What I did was cook the ham hock with a big pot of turnip greens, and the shank bone with another big pot of white beans.

I’m proud to report that I made use of every scrap of that ham, and as I was lingering over the last bowl of pot likker, contemplating the final details of my new eating habits, the doorbell rang.

It was the UPS guy, who said he was fixing to deliver my long-lost Christmas cheese package.