“Hello? Honeybaked?”
Kasia March 12th, 2008
Honeybaked Ham has been running what is actually a pretty clever ad campaign for the last couple of months. The theme is “Honeybaked to the rescue,”and billboards feature scenarios like “Nine ham lovers and one vegetarian? Honeybaked Sides to the rescue!” or “First holiday dinner on your own? Honeybaked to the rescue!” Putting aside (for today, anyway) the sociological implications of a culture in which we’ve all but lost the art of cooking for ourselves, and the health and financial issues that raises, it’s kind of cute.
Today I heard a radio ad for Honeybaked. It was a woman calling Honeybaked, panicking because she had only just realized that Easter’s happening in March, and demanding that they postpone it. (Yes. Postpone Easter. As if we reeeeeally needed more Lent. …well, ok, I probably do need it. Shaddap.) The Honeybaked rep puts her on hold for a few seconds, then comes back, tells her that he’s put her down for X, Y and Z (ham and sides, I think), and that he called Rome, but “it seems they’re dead set on March 23rd. But next year Easter is on April thus-and-such, and the following year it’s on April whatever-it-is.” The woman, taken slightly aback, says somewhat hesitantly, “Well – you did all you could.”
No, I’m not even posting to rant about the idea that someone might be so self-centered as to actually try this. I’m sure it came out of some coffee-soaked (or perhaps alcoholic-coffee-soaked) creative department’s brainstorming session, like “Man, can you imagine if someone actually DID this?!”
No. My point is much more tangential. 
I go to CVS quite often on my lunch to buy a pop, since for some inconceivable reason, the Archdiocese doesn’t want to put a vending machine into the Cathedral. And for the past several weeks, I’ve been watching for the card section to change, and for Easter and confirmation cards to appear so I can pick one out for my candidate.
They haven’t.
They’ve had Easter candy out for I don’t even know how long. They’ve had all sorts of spring-and-Easter stuff out. They’ll be putting out Fourth of July stuff by the first of April. But the card section has remained stagnant.
If I were Orthodox, I could understand it, what with their Easter and ours almost never coinciding. Or if I was going to a CVS in a primarily, say, Russian or Armenian neighborhood – figure most of the clientele are going to be Orthodox, so they’ll tailor their selection accordingly. But last I knew, Protestants and Catholics celebrated Easter on the same date. And that date is just over a week away.
Anyone have any idea what’s going on?
Maybe I should call Honeybaked…
Well, I can’t speak for CVS, but if you are thinking of buying a Honeybaked, get the spiral cut ham at Costco instead. Cheaper and just as tasty.
Can we postpone Election Day to see if any better choices pop up?
Oh, mercy. Actually, my family IS postponing Easter! See, my father and stepmother are down in Florida for February and March, so they decided we’d celebrate Easter together the first Sunday in April…
I like your suggestion about Election Day, but it’d never work. The sleazy ones keep turning up, like bad pennies…
At least we can be reasonably assured of being spared an Eliot Spitzer presidential run. Talk about small favors.
However, an admission: I do not have a Costco membership. Gasp! I know, I know. But the last time I had something from there was when I moved into my condo almost 2 years ago – my mother went in and bought some lunchmeat, bread, and mustard to start my new fridge – and do you know, it was one of those double packs of giant mustard bottles, and I just threw away the first one b/c it had started going all watery and was well past the date. I need to dig into the back of my cupboard and find the second one to pitch. For one resident and one frequent visitor, it just ain’t worth it.
I’m partial to Honeybaked because my grandmother always got one for holidays, but a few years back someone figured out how to make the glaze and posted it online. If you’re comfortable wielding a blowtorch, take it from me: we tried it, and it’s pretty darned good!
Me thinks that until we have those dodecatuplets that you want
we can use a Costco membership to buy Fruity Pebbles and coffee (I think it would be worth the $50/year).
Ah Honeybaked ham, I remember that blow torch well. Doesn’t TBS have it now? I’m surprised at CVS, they usually push holidays together. Just try Kroger.
And as for Costco, you might like Sam’s Club better. Costco forces you to get a credit card and it costs 50 bucks for a membership.
Oh you’re welcome to come have Easter at our house. I don’t care for ham too much and I seriously need to prevent my mom from forcing us to eat ham products for months. We still have a chunk of ham in the freezer from Christmas. Wow, you’ve made me hungry now.
Julia – you’re hungry? Go eat some ham!
We were invited to an Easter-proper celebration at some of Nancy’s relatives’ house, but I’ll talk to TBS and The Canuck and see what they think.
Sweetie – My metric is rusty – how many babies would “dodecatuplets” be? Twenty? One hundred? You know very well that my preferences are for the high single-digits…
Well if you can’t it’s okay. I’m working on getting my mom to buy lamb instead. Ham just isn’t special anymore when we eat it every single holiday.
Ah, but is lamb what the average American would buy?
Lamb’s also generally more expensive (unless you’re buying Honeybaked). But ya know, they’re both tasty. I’m just glad we don’t eat hot dogs for Christmas.
Costco spiral sliced ham wins, hands down. Costco is more high-end than Sam’s. You will save your membership cost (and, no – you don’t have to get a credit card) your first trip through. The reason they charge a membership fee is so they can sell their merchandise at a 2% profit margin.
Sam’s is owned by Wal-Mart and Costco is a US based company that pays its employees very, very well. I know since I worked for them for 8 years.
Sam’s Club is just a warehouse – Costco is a “happening”
Lamb just seems like an easter type of meat. Spring and all. Ham is just so ordinary. And I could make a really good dish with hotdogs for a holiday, but I don’t really like hotdogs much. We used to have lamb a lot more when I was a kid, but you can’t find it in Kroger much anymore.
Julia, please understand that I’m not making fun of you right now – no, really, I’m not – but I want you to understand why this struck me as so funny:
Lamb just seems like an easter type of meat. Spring and all.
How much do you know about Easter?
“This is Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world…”
…and, of course, Passover (which was immediately before the first Easter) involves a lamb…
There’s abundant reason to eat lamb on Easter – it’s THE traditional Easter meat, as far as I know. Grandma H. used to make it, I think, and my Grandma O. used to use a lamb-shaped butter mold for Easter. But you arrived at such a profoundly Christian answer with such completely secular logic – it just takes my breath away.
Again, I’m not making fun of you. You wouldn’t have had occasion to know the Lamb of God part, for sure, and wouldn’t necessarily have had reason to connect Passover with Easter.
I knew about the symbolism actually. Lambs and Easter I get, but rabbits and chocolate? Not so sure how a clucking rabbit connects to Easter. Good candy, but even I think holidays have lost their point due to advertising.
No, you’re right – I don’t know how they originated, but the rabbits and chocolate are now thoroughly divorced from the actual meaning of Easter. It’s like we’ve actually got two Easters, two Christmases, etc: any holiday that has its basis as a Christian* feast day/celebration has people who are celebrating it for the original reason and then other people who are celebrating it out of habit, or because they like to exchange gifts/give baskets of candy to their kids. Sometimes there’s some overlap.
*It may be true of Jewish celebrations as well, and/or of other religions’ celebrations and even secular holidays, but it seems to be the most grossly exaggerated with Christian holidays.
Except for Hannukah (which really is such a minor holiday it’s a joke) I think the other holidays stay true to meaning. Unless you’re a Humanist like my stepmother and then it’s just faking it. But at least at Passover you get 7 glasses of wine, that’s 7 full glasses. But no one does that anymore really.
I know you think of me as probably some horrible atheist, but I really do have an interest in this religion stuff.
No, I don’t think of you as “some horrible atheist”. In fact, even with avowed atheists, I try not to affix adjectives like “horrible”.
I hope it’s not too unkind of me to point out that some of your past behavior hasn’t demonstrated any particular interest in, or support for, religion at large and Christianity in particular. In fairness, though, we’ve not really discussed the subject much, especially in recent years. So – I’ll just say that I was impressed to see that you knew the “Lamb of God” reference.
I’m not too vocal about my beliefs and I used to just not care, but if i’m going to have an interest in the paranormal, I better have an interest in studying religion. since the afterlife seems to big a big part of religion, no matter which one it is. this isn’t saying that I’m going to go join one, at least not yet.
Fair enough.
You know I’m happy to argue the case for Christianity any time you want; but at the least, I would strongly suggest that you read C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, which I’ve just started but have had so highly recommended that I have no qualms about passing on the recommendation. They are both very well-written, and considering they were written by brilliant men (Lewis was an Oxford professor, and I don’t remember about Chesterton), they’re really quite accessible. And if you read those and want more recommendations, I’m more than happy to give them.
The one thing I will say – and if you read Lewis you’ll see that he was a strong influence on me in this regard – is that the fundamental question is NOT “do I want to believe this?” or “do I like how I feel when I go to church?” The bedrock question we should ask about ANY religion is: “Is it true?” So if I think Hinduism is really nifty, but I realize that it isn’t true, then I’d be wasting my time converting to Hinduism. The same is true of Christianity. The difference is, I am quite certain that Christianity is true. I accept that it’s possible that I’m wrong about that, but I don’t think I am.
In any event, good luck, and always feel free to call, e-mail, Facebook, whatever if you want to ask a question. I promise not to baptize you against your will.
I just don’t why I have to follow one religion, isn’t being a good person and having some decent level of values and morals enough? I mean when you look at it, almost all religion have similar rules and a similar goal, to go somewhere good when they die. It all sounds the same to me. Probably because all religions have a common base. Oh and I’m actually trying a half-assed attempt at making the Easter thing at our house a little more traditional, I’m making some sort of Russian Easter bread. It’s my first attempt at anything other than white bread, so it might not be perfect.
If you haven’t bought a ham already, Kasia, I suggest a Dearborn ham. You can get them practically anywhere: Kroger, Meijer, VGs, etc. It’s pre-cooked.
Put it in a roasting pan, open a can of crushed pineapple and cover the top. Pour a one liter bottle of either Vernors or Doctor Pepper in the bottom, seal in tin foil and cover pan. The pinaepple prevents any real drying across the top, and the soda adds a flavorful steam.