How strange that you, of all of us, would prove to be the most hopeful.

Juli Mac has, quite sensibly, taken the step of letting us all know what sort of sendoff she wants, should she die unexpectedly and in the company of everyone more qualified to see to it. Naturally, I have started thinking about the same thing. Really, it’s important to make sure everyone knows what you want, lest you wind up boxed among people saying “I dunno. What do you want to do?” until you smell bad enough that they just bury you. I gave it a great deal of thought, and considered all my options carefully, and took the measure of my surviving loved ones, and what is most important to all of us, and what would give greatest comfort. And I have decided, after much contemplation, that I wish to be memorialized as a seasoning.

I read once that the pigs destined to be the very best lardo are fed only apples, walnuts, and cream for the last few months of their lives, so given that I should taste reasonably good. I’m not suggesting I be cured into prosciutto or have my liver seared and served with caramelized apples or have y’all barbecue my shoulder or anything weird like that; I think I would be better off rendered, dried, and granulated. Like garlic. I would live on forever in my closest circle of friends, a little shaker-jar of warmth and closeness for those times I am missed. A couple shakes of me over a baked potato, a quarter-cup in the Super Bowl Chili year after year, an bit infused into a bottle of fine vodka. Or maybe as part of a dry rub on ribs, smoked to beautiful fragrant memories by one of my grandpits.

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