September 7, 2014: Bachinger Farms bacon and a bonus

MY LIFE WITH BACON CONTINUES this week with a review of Bachinger Farms bacon, some bacon on the road, and news.  And a bonus section on awesome pickles.

BACON IN THE NEWS 

Yes, a "Bacon Fueled Motorcycle Sizzles across America".  True.  Hormel.  Link here.

And, another vindication of the low carb / paleo lifestyle, in an article in the New York Times summarizing a recent large scale scientific study.   Link here.

BACHINGER FARMS BACON was pretty darned good.  The packaging was attractive.  I purchased the pound at the Saturday Farmer's market in Lake Forest; hadn't seen it before.

The smell was classic coming out of the package.  Precook weight 1 pound, 0.3 ounces.  Post cooking, it weighed in at 6.5 ounces and generated a generous 175ml of rendered bacon fat.  Flavor was a solid 4 out of five, succulence average at 2.5 and crisped up well: 3 out of 5.  However, my friend Eric Arnson points out that crispness and chewiness are directly related to method of cooking, and how long the bacon is cooked.  I agree 100%.  Eric prefers chewy.  His "rule of thumb" is to hold the bacon horizontally - if it stays straight, it's cooked too much.  It needs to bend down easily.  All a matter of taste; I prefer it to be firm rather than limp, and crispy rather than chewy.  What do you think?  Post a comment.

Here's the pre-, during, and post-cooking photos:

 

ROAD BACON THIS WEEK was consumed at the pleasant Black Water Grill in Salem, NH.  I was visiting my friends at NEPS, LLC, and had a great lunch there.  The pic is of a wedge salad, and a crab cake.  You get great seafood in New England!  The bacon is from Hatfield Quality Meats, and was awesome with the wedge salad.  Very paleo.

THE BONUS THIS WEEK is all about pickles.  Eric does home made pickling at this time each year, and we were the lucky recipients of a few Ball jars loaded to the gills.  Awesome pickling job!  In some batches, he adds peppers, but for the batch he dropped off on Saturday morning, it was "3G", meaning "triple garlic".  I did a side by side comparison to a national brand, and Eric's pickled cukes come out on top by a country mile.  "Awesome, dude!"