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My partner, that is. Just kidding, sort of.
She brought a roast pork shoulder to a holiday party yesterday at her job. This Puerto Rican delicacy is called pernil, or in Newyorrican, pe'ni'. She grew up in a restaurant, so she is an excellent, fabulous cook. I consider myself a good cook and a good judge of cooking, and I'm pretty sure that I am not being biased when I say she makes a better pernil than anyone -- whether in a high class restaurant or Hispanic home. It is just heaven.
So anyway, she takes the pernil to the hospital where she works. Many of her coworkers are hispanic, but it's such a diverse crew, some of the young doctors are Pakistani muslims, and one is Jewish and one of her supervisors is Jewish.
The aroma of the pernil was so overpoweringly delicious, that the Jewish and Muslim people tried the pork. One Jewish doctor said she had only had pork once before -- she tasted bacon. But she had two helpings of the magical pernil! The Pakistani intern also had several helpings. The way she describes it, it was like a scene from the magical cooking Penelope Cruz movie, Woman On Top, in which people were literally helpless before Cruz's dishes.
I guess she should feel guilty, but as my Jewish friend Myles once said while surprising me by eating shellfish, "It's true I can't eat shellfish, but who said anything about tasting?"
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