I've never wanted to get married, but if I ever did it should probably be to Luis. I can't even tell you why exactly. It's just something I know. Luis came to the United States at age seventeen, not because his family was poor, but because his father thought he needed to get off of his butt. It was sort of like when students from here go to Europe for the summer—an adventure abroad. His father told him to stay until he had earned enough money to buy a new pickup truck. This adventure abroad turned into seven years.

This will probably be the last time that I hold forth at length about corned hams. This treasure of eastern North Carolina culture has been a cause of mine since I discovered that no one had ever heard of it outside of the three or four counties around where I grew up—New Bern in Craven County. Now, the world has taken notice and my work is done. Proof of this is found in the meat counters of the Piggly Wigglys, where ham is returning after an absence of many years. I give its appearance on an episode of PbS's A Chef 's Life the credit for this. But I'm getting ahead of myself.