Let's all have a moment of silence for...

...for the import and sale of pork in the UAE. The nation, never fully enthusiastic about the trade of bacon and sausage, for valid reasons, has banned the products as a preventative measure in light of swine flu.

Whither the Spinney's pork room? How will I make that pancetta recipe, the one with the eggs in the holes in the toast, I watched Rachel Ray whip up the other day? And what about my plan to serve my expatriate friends The Bacon Explosion, the BBQ Sausage Recipe of All Recipes, come Canada Day?



I know this move will lessen my chances of getting swine flu, and hey, I rarely ate pork anyway when it was free-flowing, even a pizza topping, back in Canada. The truth is, I mostly only crave it when I can't get it. Still, I am reminded of what happened a long time ago when I had a chance to go to my 10th Grateful Dead concert in Buffalo, New York. I had just started a journalism summer job and the notion of a three-day, quite-possibly psychedelic excursion seemed inappropriate. I'll go next summer, I thought. When I am more settled and I have vacation time.

Well, the next summer never came because a short while later the band's grey furry frontman Jerry Garcia died. The Grateful Dead as I, a wanna-be third-ish generation fan, knew them, was over. And of course now the idea of putting bells on my ankles, dabbing on patchouli, eating dinner purchased from a man in a van known as the "Spaghetti Bus" and watching my boyfriend fall down on the ground laughing before he can pass me the whippet seems silly. Plus, no Jerry Garcia. Missed my last chance, although the occasion of his death did provide the name for a stray cat I adopted at the time.

My point: last week, while browsing the Spinneys aisles, I absent-mindedly mused "I should buy myself some sausage". But something else took my attention, and I wandered off, and now, my friends, it is too late.

The moral of the story is, not as those Canadian proprietors of expensive, moderately durable yoga clothes Lululemon dictate -"eat, floss, sing"; or as the strong-armed country star Tim McGraw sings Live Like You Were Dying, but, and this advice is straight from me, to "eat pork", eat lots of it, and eat it now, as long as your religion allows and you are not a vegan or vegetarian, and, obviously, do not happen to be living in one of several Middle Eastern countries at the moment.