Home Bound

The first thing I did at the dawn of our new era of social distancing, sheltering in place, hunkering down, holing up—pick your preferred term for the new normal—was to order a ham. I know, I know. Dorothy Parker said, “Eternity is a ham and two people,” and a week into it, a lot of folks were already feeling as though an eternity had passed. But this is a beautiful, manageable ham, made of superior Berkshire pork, bone-in, uncured and smoked, from D’Artagnan, the New Jersey–based purveyor of deliciousness that has long been one of my lifelines. (I live in two places where the butcher, if such a person in fact exists, looks at you as though you have lost your mind when you request such exotica as a simple lamb shoulder or a breast of Muscovy duck.) Also, since the second “person” with whom I am isolating is my beloved beagle, Henry,