BACON IN THE NEWS starts with bacon involved in crime (again). This is becoming so rampant that I might start a section just on crimes involving bacon. This one involves an estranged girlfriend who decides to set fire to her ex-boyfriend's house by setting a bunch of bacon on fire. The perp has such an appropriate name, but what a waste of perfectly good baco. Trial next month. We'll see if the judge can keep a straight face.
"Cameo Adawn Crispi, 32, repeatedly called and texted her former flame in March from his home, where she left the bacon over a lit burner, police said.
The man wasn't home and called police saying he wanted Crispi out of his house, The Deseret News reports. Officers arrived and saw smoke flowing out the front door. Inside, they found hot coals on the floor around an open wood stove and the burned bacon.
Crispi's blood-alcohol level was 0.346, four times the legal limit, charging documents say.
"The doctor asked her about the fire ... and she stated she was attempting to start a fire in the house to get back at (her ex-boyfriend)," the charges state."
BACON ON THE ROAD. This week, I traveled to Florida on business, and had the pleasure of having dinner at The Blue, a private club restaurant on the 27th floor of the tower at The Boca Raton Resort & Club.
What incredible ambiance and flavorful food! Of course, I had a menu item that contained bacon, and it was the brussels sprouts. I've shown my own version of this tasty dish before, which is very paleo, in a previous blog post. This one was just about the best I've ever had outside my own kitchen. I also ordered the skirt steak - very tasty, and the view was amazing.
Naturally, I asked for the source of their bacon. Incredibly, it is my #1 rated special bacon: Nueske's from Wisconsin! I've reviewed and rated their bacon many times. Check out their website and order some (I'm an unpaid non-spokesperson).
We didn't get out of the restaurant until midnight, and I had hopes to visit a local brewpub about which I've written before: the Funky Buddha. Unfortunately, it was closed. I really wanted to sample and bring home their 4-star Maple Bacon beer, about which I've written before.
NOW FOR THE BACON REVIEW.
I dropped by a new supermarket in Deerfield, Illinois recently and was very impressed by the quality and variety of fresh foods: the Fresh Thyme Farmers Market (by the way, why is everyone so apostrophe challenged these days, especially with retail names like Michaels?). Wow.
I grabbed a pound of their bacon, right out of the case. They told me that the bacon is from the Indiana Kitchen - which I thought would be a very vague name with too many Google hits to specifically identify. How wrong I was - it's the first thing on the search list. And it appears to be all that they do! The clerk told me that all of her customers tell her it's "the best bacon they ever had". We'll, here's my opinion. 
Precooked it was 1.06 pounds net; post cooking, 5.9 ounces. Above average result. About 120 ml of fat dripped out of the pan. Also a solid performance. The bacon had no odor out of the package (normally not a good sign). And during cooking the bacon had some translucence which indicates over-cure. The bacon immediately started to curl up, and stuck to the pan quite strongly.
Flavor was quite interesting, with a natural taste that I couldn't quite identify. I want to say "notes of..." but I wasn't able to find the right music... I'd give it a cripsiness factor of 3 out of 5, succulence 3 out of 5, and a cheweyness factor (thanks again, Eric) of 4 out of 5. Of course, cheweyness and crispness often depend on length and method of cooking. Flavor also gets a 4. Highly rated, but not "the best I ever had". That moniker, my friends, goes to Nueske's (see above and older posts.)
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