Meat Candy

I do the shopping and cooking. During a routine run to the store I bought a ½ pound of ‘premium’ bacon on sale. It was tough and only remotely tasted like bacon.

Yearning for some real bacon, the next time I was out I went to Fresh Market. I call this place the food museum because it has the best of everything – and of course prices to match. Nonetheless, I bought a pound of their Market Bacon and drooled as I took it home. I’d have it the next day.

The next day’s bacon adventure got a little complicated when my daughter and two grand-kids came over. I waited for a window to cook and eat my prize bacon in private but it didn’t materialize, so I decided to just ‘do it’. Mealtime ensued as I was cooking and my bacon became part of the bill of fare of the family meal. Bottom line – I got only one piece.

So today, I went back to Fresh Market and ordered a pound that I would eat by myself. Turns out it was on sale so I got two pounds. I like to cook outside on the patio table using an induction cooker w/ Teflon fry pan. This is for several reasons:

1 – cooking outside means the household cooktop doesn’t get ‘dirty’ too many days before the cleaning lady comes.

2 -  the temperature of the induction cooker is a no brainer…set it to the temp you want and it maintains it.

3 – the Teflon pan cleans up with a paper towel.

4: the cooker itself is streamlined and can be easily cleaned up with Windex and a paper towel.

5. when the patio table gets greasy enough, it gets a stiff brush with comet and the garden hose – maybe every 5^th or 6^th cooking.

It took 3 beers to cook 1 1/2 lbs of bacon and the grease in the pan looked so good I threw a couple eggs in it. I was brought back to reality thinking about eating enough bacon to put me in a coma when my dog Merlin wet nosed my hand, indicating I guess, that he too was expecting some bacon.

During all this potential bacon ecstasy I didn’t think to take any pictures, but when Merlin got into the picture and reality set in I thought I’d snap a pic of some of the chicken I cooked for him so I didn’t have to share my bacon.

Induction cooker with Merlin's chicken

You’ll likely read my obituary tomorrow, with my veins so clogged that Draino couldn’t open them, but the bacon was worth it. And if I do survive, I have a dozen Tums at the night stand, after which I’ll probably cook that last ½ pound.