KOSHER PIG - BET ON CRAZY - 2013

In 2013 business in the Diamond District was spotty during the high holidays of Rosh Shananah and Yom Kippur. The Hassidim disappeared to the various shetls scattered around New York and tourists entered our diamond exchange to gawk at the diamonds and jewelry. At least twice a day out-of-towners asked in complete seriousness, "Are they real?"

"Everything is real," I answered the visitors before launching into a short spiel about the value of diamonds and gold. "Years ago we told the customers that diamonds were a good investment. It was sort of true then, but now diamonds appreciate in value better than houses plus they're easier to convert into cash at times of need."

The tourists nodded with understanding. Their homes had lost value three years in a row. My boss Richie Boy doesn't have the patience for these rubes. Only occasionally they were buyers.

Later that day I sold an Italian diamond bracelet to a Vermont couple celebrating their 60th anniversary. They lived a short distance from Richie Boy's ski shack and he warmed up to them. Selling turned him on like a drag racer on nitro and the Thursday after Yom Kippur he delivered a 31-inch diamond necklace set with GIA-certified .40 ct. diamonds to a hedge fund investor.

The piece was a magnificent blaze of reflected light set in platinum. His customer coined millions every day. He could have shopped at Harry Winston, but Richie Boy and he went back to the 80s. Discos. Both were loyal to each other. Richie Boy returned to the store after closing and said, "That's it. I’ve had enough of Rushahoma. I'm headed out to my surf shack."

“What about tomorrow?” his father asked from his desk. Manny would have remained open 24/7, if the exchange didn’t close at 6.

“Fridays are dead and nothing is deader than a Jewish holiday Friday.” Richie Boy needed his rest. He had rescued the firm through a series of near-miraculous sales. I had helped with a few deals out of the blue and neither of us were broke.

“What about trying to run this store like a business?” Manny was frustrated by his son’s laissez-faire attitude.

“There’s more to life than work.”

“Like what?” Manny lived for his work. His father, Jake, had been the same. Somehow that relentless devotion to the grindstone had skipped a generation with Richie Boy.

“Surfing.” Richie Boy had a place on the beach out in Montauk. Ditch Plains was a five-minute wak from his front door.

"What are you doing this weekend?" asked Marvin, the newly-married diamond dealer across the aisle.

"I'm having a kosher pig BBQ."

"How can pig be kosher?" The balding fifty year-old didn't follow the dictates of glatt kosher, but Marvin wasn't a bacon Jew.

“How?”

“Yes, how?” Marvin was a shrewd diamond buyer. He figured everything for a third of its value. He had been the president of the glee club of a summer camp in the Jewish Alps and was as gullible as a cheerleader on quaaludes.

Richie Boy wickedly went for the complete wind-up.

"A special rabbi consecrates the pig before killing it according to an ancient Hebrew tradition. It predates the Torah." Richie Boy is a great salesman and Marvin admired his chutzpah as well as his ability to thrive amongst the goyim.

"Really?" Marvin was swallowing the possibility of kosher bacon with a kvelling smile.

"100%. Come out to my BBQ and I'll introduce to the delight of kosher pork."

Marvin promised to show up at the beach BBQ. We laughed at his schmielism and Richie Boy prepared for his early departure from New York. His father continued to kvetch like an old yenta. At 83 the only choice were work or death. Manny and I fought every day. Our arguments flushed the blood through his body. I hoped that he lived to 103.

At 59 I had more in common with him than most of the people on the planet.

"You know the reason why pork is tref?"

"It caused people to have worms in the old days." Richie Boy checked the exchange. The religious don’t have a funny bone over pig’s feet. "And don't tell me that it's because Yahweh ordered the Jews give up pork as the ultimate sacrifice."

"Little tastes better than bacon." Richie Boy and I knew each other over 30 years. We had heard enough of our stories enough to give them numbers. I was still capable of catching him off-guard. "Pork is tref no matter what. Leviticus condemned pig for its cloven food, but there is such a thing as kosher pork chops. Not for the Hassidim, but it's cooked with pickle juice and kosher salt."

"Sounds as dry as an old shoe." Richie Boy possessed a better than average epicurean palate.

"Not something I'd eat, but maybe scientists can genetically modify a pig to have feet instead of hooves." I had eaten pigs' foot in Berlin. Schweinefüße was considered the city's signature dish. "Pigs with little toes."

"Stop. That's sacrilege." Manny hadn’t been to the temple in years, but once a Jew always a Jew.

"Sacrilege and heresy are my specialties." I set the alarm and wished Richie Boy a good weekend.

"You can come out on Saturday."

"Thanks, but I got to get ready for my trip." I was heading out to Thailand for a month. It would be the longest that I had spend with since 2008. "If there really was kosher pig I might change my mind."

"You never know."

"I know." Richie Boy and I had spent too much time together over the past years. It was time for a break.

Kosher pig or not.

Hellah Swelter

A horrid heatwave has scorched the Eastern Seaboard for the past four days.

New York thermometers have read in the upper 90s.

This evening I descended into the subway.

The temperature rose 10 degrees Fahrenheit on each level.

The train platform had to be in the 100s.

I hurried into the air-conditioned train.

A cool 75.

respite from the madness of Hellah Swelter, however the weatherists have predicted a repeat for tomorrow.

Hot.

But not as hot as LA.

Q: How hot is it in Southern California? A:

So hot every fat guy sweating in the city smells like Bacon!

BEAR SEASON by Peter Nolan Smith

Hunting season along the Hudson River opened in mid-October.

Bow and arrows only.

Guns weren't allowed until November, so I felt relatively safe walking in the woods wearing a neon-orange hooded sweatshirt. No animal in that color existed north or south of Troy, New York and during the shooting season non-hunters drape their bodies in brilliant orange to prevent any hunter from mistaking them for a deer.

d

“No one has ever been refused a hunting license because they’re color blind,” Floyd told me at the Green Acres Tavern. The drinking establishment on Rte. 29 was brightly lit at all hours of the day, since the owner thought people looked more honest under 100-watt light.

“So someone might shoot me even if I’m wearing this.” The orange was hurtful to the eye.

“If drink was involved, everyone is fair game.” Belvin shrugged his shoulders.

The fifty-six year-old farmer was a crack marksman. The previous weekend he had scored 99 out of 100 with a bolt-action .308 Winchester. “People shoot at whatever they see come hunting season. One time I’m sitting here and this down-stater enters the tavern, telling everyone about the spike-horn deer he killed. None of us had ever heard about this species of deer and asked to see his kill. It was a billy goat.”

“That’s nothing. Them folks will shoot anything that moves.” A scrawny UPS driver diverted his attention from the NFL replays. People up here like talking about hunting season. “My uncle’s game warden down in Duchess County. One time he stops a truck on Route 44 and asks the driver what he has on the roof. The driver tells him a spotted deer. It was a St. Bernhard.”

“I lost a cow to a hunter three years ago.” A lady mournfully remembered with a Bud in her hand. “She was a good milker.”

“I’ve never hunted in my life.” My father was vehemently anti-gun, so the majority of my experience with weapons came from shooting with my Dutch uncle Howie Hermann at the 20th Street Shooting Range in Manhattan. Every Monday night we would meet at the 2nd Avenue Deli and then drive over to shoot pistols; Lugers, Colts, S&W ad infinitum. Howie was real gun-nut.

Sweet as pie, but he liked his guns.

“Nothing wrong with not hunting," another drinker commented from the end of the bar. His voice betrayed his real feeling on the subject. Guns were sacred this far north of New York City.

“I know that.” My youth had been spent in Maine. Deer and bear had been strapped to cars during hunting season. Their blood dripping over the windows was a badge of manhood in the North. “I never really wanted to kill anything, but I’m not saying it’s not a good thing as long as it’s for eating.”

“Deer meat’s good.” Belvin had a side of deer in his freezer. “Bear not so good.”

“If you get them in the fall, you can grill them up as steaks.” A bearded beer-drinker added from his stool. Everyone here knew everyone. “But they cook up dry real quick.”

“But if you undercook it, you get trichinellosis.” I was the outsider, but was familiar with this problem thanks to reading about the disastrous Franklin polar expedition. The crew ate bear and died of trichinellosis.

“That’s deadly, ain’t it?” The beer-drinker was scratching his head, as if his fingers might jog lose the brain cells holding that information.

“Same as if you ate uncooked pig.” Belvin was a subsistence farmer. He could eat everything on his land, excepting the tree bark and his wife knew how to make teas from them. “You get nausea, heartburn, dyspepsia, and diarrhea. That’s why the Jews and Muslims don’t eat pork.”

“I’m not so sure that’s the reason. I have a lot of Jewish friends who are bacon Jews. They love pork. I think the real reason that their religions prohibit pork is that it tastes so good.” At least to my palate. “I was in Sumatra once. A big island in Indonesia. Full of Muslims. Anyway I go up to the highlands and the people are Christians. Everyone of them. They even sing Christian prayer songs like BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. We were out in the forests and I asked them as we were cooking wild pig, why they didn’t become Muslims like everyone else. The elder explained that they loved the taste of pork too much to give it up for any god.”

“Not much tastes better than bacon.” The UPS driver smacked his lips.

“What about apple pie?” The woman eyed the dessert tray by the kitchen window. The food at the tavern was home-made.

“Apple pie is pretty damn good, but it ain’t meat.” The bearded farmer’s statement granted him a bar of nodding heads.

“The pig that night on Sumatra was good. The hill people ate everything, but the oink. Afterwards the headman asked, “You know why we like pig so much?” I shook my head and he answered by saying, “Because it tastes like man.”

“Cannibals.” Belvin’s hand reached for a gun at his waist. The .357 was in the truck.

“Supposedly not anymore, but I didn’t like the way they were looking at me. Sort of like a fat person after eating a salad.”

“What you do?” The UPS driver was on the edge of his seat.

“I thanked them for the dinner and headed home. I thought they were going to bushwhack me on the trail. I locked the door of the hotel and left the next day. Believe I was happy to be back with the Muslims, although they were a little grim about my beer-drinking, but I’ve never heard of any Muslim cannibals.”

“Me neither.” The bartender put a shot of whiskey in front of me.

“What’s that for?”

“You won the biggest bullshit story of the night award.” Belvin scanned the rest of the clientele. They were locals. “No one here can come up with better.”

“But it wasn’t bullshit.” My bone marrow trembled with the remembrance of the ex-cannibals’ faces.

“You should make it a double.” The UPS driver had returned his gaze to the Jets’ highlights. “He even believes his own bullshit.”

“Here’s to bullshit.” I drained the shot and ordered a round for the bar. It wasn’t painful. Buds in the Green Acres are only $2.50 and that’s everyone’s favorite beer. Mine was Labatt’s Blue. It cost $3. Belvin drove me home before midnight. We had long tomorrows ahead of us. He left me off at the end of my friend’s drive.

“That was sure some good story.” Belvin was smiling with the belief that I was the best bullshitter he had heard in some time.

“Thanks.” Sometimes it’s best not to disappoint the masses. I waved goodnight and Belvin disappeared over the crest of the hill. In the light of the moon my sweatshirt glowed orange. I made it home without a single shot coming in my direction.

Next month would be another story.

Holy Bacon No

Deuteronomy 14:3-10 states, "Do not eat any detestable thing. ... The pig is also unclean; although it has a split hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses."

Jews consider pork 'tref' or unclean.

The Q'aran maintains the same edict.

"Allah has only forbidden you to eat dead meat, and blood and the flesh of swine."

Despite Jews and Muslims refraining from pork, the price of bacon has climbed to over $6 a pound, which is 41% more expensive than 2012 according to Huffington Post. The writer attributes this nearly doubling of the cost to the factors; a virulent disease, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, the rising demand, and the deep drought savaging the nation's heartland.

He's correct about the demand, but Joe Satran fails to report several other factors in the equation.

The USA processes a 100 million pigs a year. Leading to yearly losses of nearly $150 million of a hundred thousand pigs from porcine epidemic diarrhea virus is a worrisome issue for consumers, but this slippage is covered by the worldwide demand for pork as well as profit-maximization by the pork industry. As much as I love bacon, it has become an occasional visitor to my kitchen table.

The price of bacon is more determined by the US fuel industry's continued support of corn ethanol as a fuel, which drives up feed, even though most pigs would rather eat anything other than that filthy GMO corn, but when you're hungry you'll eat anything.

Secondly the Chinese purchase of Smithfield Ham expanded their exports to China.

More demand for a smaller supply leads to an increase in price.

Simple economics.

Lastly the pork industry has a captive consumer base.

Americans love bacon.

I love bacon.

Few foods in the world taste like bacon.

Vegetarians have failed to replicate its crispy salt fat delight.

pork = good fat = flavor bacon = heaven

Pigs equal profits to the pork industry.

They are subsidized by US Farm Aid.

They pay their employees the minimum wage.

The price of bacon is determined by the profit margins demanded by Wall Street.

There isn't nothing wrong with making money on a pig, but at $6 a pound I'll give it a miss, because a six-pack of Narragansett beer is $6 at Trader Joe's.

Beer or bacon.

It's a close contest, because as Don Larsen, a middle-distance runner at the 1924 Olympics said, "I Like this quote I dislike this quote“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”