Porky

I remember this one time when I felt thin. It falls into the same category as I remember this one time when I had appendicitis. Thin has always been a condition, never a state of being. Yet looking back at photos when I was young, I was pretty normal looking. But I felt fat and I thought I was fat my entire life. So did my mother. In fact, she has often told me her nickname used to be the Afrikaans version of Porky. But in all the pictures I've seen of her as a girl and a young woman she's gorgeous. As my mother she was almost unseemly hot, but she still felt fat. As a grandmother now she's lovely, but she still thinks she's fat. My beautiful mother - why couldn't I inherit her looks instead of her issues. 

Of course NOW I deserve to feel fat and to be called Porky. But it didn't happen until an asshole imploded my life and jumpstarted me towards becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wasted years thinking I was fat when I wasn't. So I'm trying to get those years back. You should see the stirfries I eat during the week - it'll make a coocoocook poopoopuke. I drink litres of water with the same enthusiasm children drink castor oil. I dread the damn treadmill but I get on it because suffering is my middle name.

But that's OK. I can take the pain Monday to Thursday because Friday is MINE. On Fridays I make up for every beansprout, ever glass of water and every reluctant tread - and I make up for it Big Time. Last night I celebrated Friday with tongue in cheek - Pork Belly stuffed with Pear and Sage on Mash Potatoes. It could literally make a porky cry.

Do me a favour though - commit to the calories. Don't cut off the fat. And don't, I beg you, EVER make mash with fat free milk and low fat marge. That's like Robbie Williams saying he wants me - and me telling him I don't go past second base. If you're gonna sin you may as well go all the way.

Besides, sometimes you just gotta let yourself go. Even porkies deserve a break, no?

xx
J

PORK BELLY STUFFED WITH PEAR AND SAGE

1.2kg Deboned Pork Belly
1 Lemon
1 Onion chopped 
1 Tin Pears (you can also use apple)
1/3c Milk
2T Sage ripped (you can also use basil or rosemary)
1c Breadcrumbs

Fry the onion in 1T butter and 1T olive oil until soft. Add pears (not juice), sage and breadcrumbs and fry for a few minutes. Add the milk and season well.

If your pork belly was tied up like mine untie it and give it a rinse. Score the fat and rub generously with salt and half the lemon. Turn upside down and cover the middle with the filling. Cut up about 8 pieces of string, 30cm long, then spread about 2cm apart on a breadboard. Put the pork on top and fold and tie and tuck until the whole belly is a study in S&M. Place in a baking dish and squeeze out the rest of the lemon juice onto the fat. Roast at 220C for 20 minutes, turn down to 180C and roast for another 45 minutes. Keep an eye out so the fat doesn't burn. 

I've covered mash before. Lots of potatoes. Little milk. Lots of butter. Salt & white (not black) pepper. And a little baking powder (absolutely essential). 

Eat without a trace of guilt.