March 23, 2014: Kevin Bacon on top of his game

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a recap of the news, and some bacon!

BACON IN THE NEWS this week starts off with a blast from the past and just an overall blast of a time.  It turns out that this is the 30th anniversary of Footloose the movie, starring Kevin Bacon.  He celebrates by going on the Tonight Show, and reprises the famous warehouse dance scene.  The absolute best recap of the original scene and his appearance on the Tonight Show can be found HERE.  This falls into the category of MUST SEE VIDEO for anyone over the age of 45 (and great for the younger set too!)  Kevin Bacon is obviously at the peak of his popularity.

SOUTH CAROLINA has a new bacon-themed restaurant called "Sizzle".  Located in the suburb called "Five Points", just east of Columbia, this restaurant sounds terrific.  Check out the news article here.  Also, see their T-shirts?  The original "Keep Calm and Carry On" was created by the British Ministry of Information in WW2, and was rediscovered in 2000 by a shopkeeper.  The saying has obviously been re-purposed thousands of times.  One of the more fun uses of KCCO is the website "The Chive" which has some interesting and fun photos and videos.

I particularly like the quote from one of the owners, when he talks about taste testing all of his menu items, “All of these things I’ve tested personally,” he said. “I’ve gained 20 pounds.”  

AND HERE WE GO AGAIN... prices of bacon are expected to rise once again.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, we've seen this movie before.  First, bacon was supposed to drop in price because there we so many pigs out there.  Then, there was a pig virus that was killing lots of litters.  That passed, and now it's back.  Here's a news story.  This time, coffee and OJ are going to soar, too. Hey, if bacon goes up 10% I doubt if there will be any decrease in sales.  I wonder about the price elasticity of bacon... 

ON TO THE BACON.  This week I cooked some Smithfield Hickory Smoked "Butcher's Cut" Double Thick bacon.  I know, I know... I've panned (no pun intended) Smithfield each and every time I've cooked it up.  And the parent company is owned by Red China (is it politically incorrect to call them that?)  Hey, my friends and I won the Cold War.  We're authorized to call it that.

But America is the land of second chances, isn't it?  So let's give them another try.  I might have had a bad pig the first time.  Plus, I have never tried this particular varietal.  Here we go.

The bacon package says it's a full pound, but I only netted 15.7 ounces.  Already 18.75% in the hole.  Not a good sign.  The bacon had no scent out of the package, which was odd.  But it looked OK.  The ends broke off as I placed on the pan and waited for it to get to room temperature (a best practice).  Once it started cooking however, the hickory came through crisp and strong.  Nice.

The bacon generated lots of fat, in fact, 175 ml.  This is quite high for any pound of bacon.  There was, to be expected, a good amount of shrinkage - as you can see in the 3-way.

The bacon was quite noisy - the absolutely classic sizzle sound.  Not too active, though - no splattering.  But it did stick to the pan more than most, and those pesky broken ends curled up quite a bit.  Post cooking, the bacon weighed in at 3.7 ounces.  Flavor - surprise!  I give it a solid 4 in flavor, a 3 in succulence and a 3 in crispness.  The broken end pieces, once dry, were quite tasty! Solid performance!

See you next week.  Since tonight is the annual Founder's Day dinner here in Chicago-land, I leave you with a non-bacon themed photo.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2014/03/21/3340457/new-five-points-bacon-restaurant.html#storylink=cpy