I love raspberry chipotle sauce.  I even eat it with a spoon.  And over pork loin, it is heavenly.  I have never understood why God would not let the Jews eat pork.  It is the best of all meat.  Bacon should be a separate food group.  Everything is better with bacon on it.  Or fried in bacon grease.  If for that reason and that reason alone, I am glad I am not a Jew.  I don't think I could give up pork.  Especially bacon.  Especially fried salt pork.  Couple that with any vegetable and you have a meal.

When I got married--and didn't know how to cook anything--I got an envelope in the mail one day and inside were a dozen fried pork rinds.  Heaven.  Mom had fried salt pork and dad cut the rinds off to mail to me.  Now that is love.  Chewing on a rubbery pork rind is bliss.

And once a month, I cook a ham.  I eat ham and sweet potatoes, then ham sandwiches before I grind up the bits and pieces that are left to make ham loaf.  After all the meat is gone, I divide up the fat and bones and freeze them to make beans--which I have to have at least once a week.

My dad smoked hams when he was a boy.  Of course he had to slaughter them first.  His folks ran the only restaurant for miles around.  In Wilburton--in Southeast Oklahoma.  Outlaws crossed out of Arkansas into Oklahoma to escape the "Hanging judge."  And  every outlaw that crossed knew about my grandfather's (William Swan) cafe and my grandma's cooking.  My grandma Mary Jane was a fabulous cook.  Her yeast rolls were to die for.

There were caves outside of Wilburton called Robber's Caves.  For a reason!  Lawbreakers who crossed into Oklahoma were on good terms with the Swans, because my dad would deliver food to the caves.  I guess you could say his family supported criminals.  But my dad said that never occurred to any of them.  They were just running a cafe.  Pretty Boy Floyd, Belle Starr and Jesse James got hungry just like everyone else.  (Google them and read about Wilburton, Oklahoma.)