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Photo by Marni Jill Ugar

Hunter, an industrious and fine gentleman, has been much pestered lately by a herd of bullying evangelist vegans drooping outside his shop window, holding miserable, hate-filled (“Murder”) signs, trying to kill his business and in the process libelling the ancient natural practice of peoplekind everywhere, that of meat-eating. He’s been haunted mercilessly by a pack of zealous plant-eaters.

It’s difficult enough when you’re on your lonesome to get the timing of the osso buco right, to get it to that exquisite equilibrium between perfectly well cooked, meat dripping from the centre bone, tenderized to perfection, but not mushy, not yet tipped over to flavourless overdone. Now imagine a posse of kale-stuffed vigilantes outside your small shop, mean from hunger and envy — though they won’t admit either — glaring zombie-eyed at you and your customers as you try to run a kitchen serving up seven or eight different dishes.

It’s not a nice picture. Thin, sallow faces pressed against the window pane, eyes sharp as daggers from a fresh binge of carrot munching, staring at you while you’re multitasking — one minute timing the marinade for the New York striploin, the next about to begin the delicate, almost surgical, removal of the fur from rabbit mortis (it is Easter after all), in prep of the rabbit pastry pie.

Pro tip on skinning rabbits: It is essential to remove all cats from the area

Pro tip on skinning rabbits: It is essential to remove all cats from the area of the autopsy board. Fluffs and patches of rabbit fur will ignite demonic frenzy in even the most placid feline. A priest I knew back home, in St. Brides parish out on the Cape Shore, lost the use of his right hand (the benediction hand) for months after the church Tom went berserk at the sight and smell of Father Kerry skinning a rabbit. He (the tom), all teeth and claws, went for the fur flap of half-peeled bunny leg like some harpy from Hell itself. He (the priest) had to cancel Confessions for a month (how the sins piled up) and his hand stammered ever afterwards when he made the sign of the cross. Liturgically, he was never himself again. Said there were times in his dark night of the soul he felt like an Anglican, poor man.