Contest-Winning Holiday Glazed Ham

Thanksgiving. The Mountain View table. The feast. Lourdes presiding with the authority of a seventy-one-year-old woman who has been commanding Thanksgivings since 1982 and will command them until the commanding is physically impossible, and even then she will command from a chair. The table: turkey, lechon kawali, pancit, lumpia (three hundred), sinigang, fruit salad, bibingka, leche flan. The excess. The Santos excess that is not waste but love, the abundance that says: we have enough. We have more than enough. The more is the point.

Angela sat at the table with her belly touching the edge, the baby so close to arrival that Angela couldn't lean forward to reach the lechon kawali and I had to serve her, the eldest sister serving the youngest pregnant sister, the ate doing what ates do — feeding, holding, serving, the role I've played since I was twelve and will play until I'm done, and the done is never, the done is not a Santos option.

Pete ate four servings. Lourdes beamed. "This one," she said, pointing at Pete with her fork, "this one understands food." The highest compliment. Pete understood food the way Lourdes means it: not just the eating but the meaning, the sitting at the table, the accepting of the abundance, the saying-yes to the more. Pete said yes to the more. Pete always says yes. Pete is Santos now.

Joseph called from Kodiak. He and Suki had Thanksgiving on the Lourdes Marie — the boat named for his mother. They smoked halibut and drank coffee and the ocean was calm and the Thanksgiving was water and fish and two people who love each other in a boat named for love. I held the secret of the proposal like a lumpia — tightly, carefully, the filling hidden inside the wrapper, the wrapper holding.

Every year I watch Pete say yes to the more—fourth servings, Lourdes beaming, the table groaning under the weight of everything we made with love—and I think about what it means to feed people like you mean it. This holiday glazed ham has become my contribution to the Santos excess when I’m the one hosting: it’s the dish that says we have enough, we have more than enough, the glaze dark and sweet and sticky in the way that feels like a celebration rather than just a meal. It sits right alongside the lechon kawali in spirit—caramelized, generous, impossible to resist—and it serves a crowd that, in our family, is never a small one.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 2 hr 30 min | Total Time: 2 hr 45 min | Servings: 16

Ingredients

1 fully cooked bone-in ham (7 to 9 lbs)
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
Whole cloves for studding (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 325°F. Place ham flat-side down in a large roasting pan. Score the surface in a diamond pattern, cutting about 1/4 inch deep.
Make the glaze. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine brown sugar, honey, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, cinnamon, ground cloves, and allspice. Stir until sugar dissolves and glaze is smooth, about 3–4 minutes. Remove from heat.
Stud and glaze. If using whole cloves, press one into the center of each diamond. Brush one-third of the glaze generously over the entire surface of the ham.
Roast covered. Tent ham loosely with foil and roast for 1 hour 45 minutes, about 12–15 minutes per pound.
Glaze and finish uncovered. Remove foil. Brush ham with another third of the glaze. Return to oven uncovered and roast an additional 30–45 minutes, brushing with remaining glaze every 15 minutes, until the surface is deep golden brown and caramelized and an instant-read thermometer inserted near the bone reads 140°F.
Rest and carve. Transfer ham to a cutting board and let rest 15 minutes before carving. Serve with pan drippings spooned over slices if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Contest-Winning Holiday Glazed Ham — The Santos Table Always Has More Than Enough