My Life With Bacon

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a cook of my own bacon for use in son Sam's famous scramble, and receipt of a great gift of Nuesek's bacon, used at a popular Chicago restaurant. BACON IN THE NEWS This is MUST WATCH INTERWEBS. Baby's first taste of bacon, ever, is captured on video, and it is priceless. Link here or click the image: MY OWN BACON cooked up great in the oven this week, and it was used in Sam's Famous Scramble. JAKE GAVE ME NUESKE'S which he procured from his restaurant, Wood , here in Chicago. Nueske's is used in all the great restaurants nationwide. Wood looks like a great place! And Nueske's is the best - about which I have written many times.

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a great appetizer for a dinner party featuring Hofherr's bacon, and some bacon in the news. BACON IN THE NEWS BACON BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT? According to a study by Carnegie Mellon University, lettuce is actually worse for the environment than bacon. Here's a quote from an article by treehugger , which isn't exactly pro-meat. Full study here . One rebuttal of the article, which are legion, is here . "What is best for the body may not be what’s best for the planet. According to a new study published by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, eating a vegetarian or vegetable-centric diet can actually increase one’s environmental impact in terms of energy use, water footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the researchers state that lettuce is “three times worse than bacon” when it comes to emissions. The study examined the environmental impact by shifting the average American diet to three dietary sc...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues by documenting my visit to Philadelphia for the annual Army Navy Football matchup. Although the Naval Academy won the game, it was a close one, 21-17. Army was a 23 point underdog. They should have won. Army always wins the march-on, where the entire student body (the Corps of Cadets at West Point, and the Brigade of Midshipmen at Annapolis) marches onto the field before the game. Here's a representative sample of why Army always wins the march-on, with the West Pointers on the left, and the Navy on the right. And here's a shot of all the cadets in formation on the field. On to the bacon. I'll call this "beat navy" bacon; consumed at the Renaissance Hotel near the Philadelphia airport. The bacon doesn't look so good, but sure tasted great. Finally, a shout out to the West Point Society of Chicago Parents Club co-President, Kim Vander Yacht, who sent me this photo. Fitting since the new Start Wars movie is coming ...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a purchase of Mariano's bacon cured with chipotle peppers. HERE'S THE BACON IN THE CASE - pretty good looking stuff GOT LAZY THIS WEEK and cooked it in the oven. I crimp the tinfoil to keep the bacon out of the grease when baking. THE FINISHED PRODUCT looked and tasted great. The bacon is cooked a little too thick for my liking, maybe 1/8 inch. But the flavor was excellent!

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with what I am thankful for (yes, it's her), and featuring a new product: bacon scented underwear. BACON IN THE NEWS BACON SCENTED UNDERWEAR IS FOR REAL! Amazing new product is available for purchase; read about it here . It's available for $20 in both men's and women's versions. Bacon-scented pillowcases are also available. A bacon-themed site, J&D Foods , is the purveyor. THIS WEEK'S BACON is some of the bacon I smoked up last weekend, plus bacon purchased in Vermont for our family's Thanksgiving weekend. I'll review the Vermont bacon in the future; here is the home made bacon from last week along side some Taylor Ham (top of picture). Taylor Ham is a NJ thing... WHAT AM I THANKFUL FOR?  Like all of us, I am thankful for LOTS of things, starting with my wife and our life. Thankful for the freedoms in this country and the people who defend it. Each year, at the Peck Thanksgiving, the Satur...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a review of the bacon I started curing a week ago, and some great pork shoulder (pic below) for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. THE CURE consisted of  Knob Creek Bourbon, Tapatio Tequila and jalapeno peppers, in a modified version of this recipe . Here's a picture of the curing bacon in baggies. Flipped 'em over in the morning and again in the evening for a full week, from Saturday morning to the next Sunday afternoon. POST CURE , above, this is what it looked like, just before a rinse.  Below is the pork shoulder, after sitting in a nice injection 'marinate' for 24 hours and before going into the smoker. I smoked the hunks of pork belly with the 9-pound pork shoulder. Everything fit rather snugly in the smoker. This became pulled pork, which will be consumed by the family over Thanksgiving weekend. The pork was injected per this recipe, and I used "Carolina Dirt" rub. ...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with news analysis of the Wall Street Journal, OOPS, didn't notice that I didn't actually publish this last week. So you get a double-dose of posts. BACON IN THE NEWS-------------------------------------------------- BIG NEWS STORY IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - this week, the esteemed WSJ published an op-ed piece entitled "The Climate Agenda Behind the Bacon Scare". In it, the journal links anti-meat proponents, who are also often climate-change enthusiasts, in a sort of conspiracy to get the world to eat less meat. The article claims that the actual scientific evidence between eating bacon and cancer is scant; the evidence related to process meats is even thinner. Great analysis of the article here ; in reviewing the actual studies, I have to agree that the link between bacon consumption in reasonable quantities, and cancer, is weak. THE DANGERS OF DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE. Of course, I've previously written about a...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues with another home-made bacon, this one inspired by last week's post. I'll cook it next week and give you a report. I, like all of us in the civilized world, are so saddened by the events of Paris, and angered by the senseless murders. A good listen, a podcast by Sam Harris: Still Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon . Frightening. THIS WEEK'S BACON is HOME MADE BACON inspired by Hormel Black Label Jalepeno Bacon. As you might know from last week's post, the Black Label Strip Show in Las Vegas is an actual live show; when I looked at the varieties of bacon they offer, one of them was jalepeno based. I bought the bacon at Costco - and it came in chunk strips, typically for braising. But I chose to cure it and later, I'll smoke it. Here is the bacon, currently wet curing. I'll cure it for the week, and smoke it next weekend. I followed the recipe below, with a few twists. One of them is a trade secret; the other is that I used ...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a lot of anger and feedback all over the Internet about the W.H.O. silliness BACON IN THE NEWS is red-hot, like a great strip of bacon. Link Susannah Mushatt Jones, the oldest person in the world at the tender age of 116, "says it'll be when pigs fly" that she stops eating bacon. As to the W.H.O. finding, she  disputes it too !

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a more complete review of my own bacon - from a raw pork belly, self-cured with tequila, and smoked on my home made smoker.  Picture above. BACON IN THE NEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A pparently the World Health Organization is going to designate bacon as a dangerous substance . An article here . I can't think of anything that is a more of a waste of time, or misguided. There is plenty of evidence that bacon fat is healthy. There is some evidence that eating lots of smoked meats produces bowel cancer. Here's another article : they say that pork and red meat are likely an actual cause of cancer. But what about that awful chemical di-hydrogen monoxide ? It's everywhere and drinking it to excess has caused deaths. Here's the website: dhmo.org . Hey, on a more serious note - world organizations, news flash: how about doing som...

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week with a look at what seems to be an uber-artisinal bloody mary cocktail with terrific bacon, some submissions from friends, a review of an old standby without the microwave, and a teaser for next week. Some may complain, that with all the trouble in the world, that I should write about more substantial things. Good observation. I like to think of my blog as a necessary diversion from all of our real-world troubles. Kind of like the toy aisle in the department store. Fun to think about other things and enjoy the simple pleasure of life. And what is bacon, if not life? Read on.... BACON IN THE NEWS - well, the 116-year old lady who eats bacon every day continues to make bacon headlines. What a story, about which I wrote last week. But we must move on. This week, a bacon infused cocktail that involves all the cooking methods I like is featured in eater.com - a menu/food consolidation news site. The cocktail is featured at the Belcampo Meat Co ...