February 21, 2016: A Big Bacon Accident and some Archer Farms

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues this week, leading with a major traffic accident involving bacon.

BACON IN THE NEWS

BIG CRASH on I-64 between a furniture truck and a vehicle carrying bacon results in a massive mess on the highway. Quite an interesting story and must have been fun to watch the aftermath. Story and picture courtesy of NEWSCHANNEL3 in Virginia.

"James City County, Va. – Crashes involving loads of furniture and bacon created a mess on I-64 Sunday, closing part of the interstate for nine hours. According to Virginia State Police, a truck that was carrying a trailer full of furniture crashed just after 2 a.m. 

The truck hit the guard rail and went across both lanes of the interstate. During the crash, the trailer of furniture came loose from the truck and furniture fell out onto the roadway. Another vehicle slowed down to avoid the furniture debris in the road and was sideswiped by a tractor trailer carrying bacon. The tractor trailer then ran off the road and into the woods.

According to VDOT, as a tow truck attempted to pull the tractor trailer back onto the road, bacon spilled out onto the interstate and the tractor trailer fell down into the woods again. It took crews nine hours to clean the road and dispose of the bacon properly before the road could be reopened.

No one was hurt."   ...except all the folks who wanted that bacon!

Interestingly, no bacon related crimes to report in the last two weeks.

THIS WEEK'S BACON IS ARCHER FARMS THICK CUT - an uncertain wood was used for smoking (normally a bacon purveyor will list the wood type; maybe they had a bunch of small batches of different woods and got lazy.)

The package was labelled 24 ounces, and yielded only 21 ounces of bacon - a ripoff! Post cooking, this bacon yielded 5.8 ounces of bacon, and 250 ml of bacon fat.

Upon opening the package, the aroma was nondescript. These were thick cut slices, and took two batches to cook. This is a very wet bacon and difficult to fry. Very sticky. Very little shrinkage and was an uneven, challenging fry. It got good & crispy, and so I give it a crispness of 3.5, a succulence of average 2.5 and an above average flavor of 3 out of 5. I'd say cook this in a cleaner way, perhaps in the oven. Not worth the trouble to skittle fry; just check out the uneven-ness.

February 7, 2016: Bacon at Crystal Bridges and more Bacon Crime stories

MY LIFE WITH BACON continues with another trip to Northwest Arkansas.

MY FRIENDS CONVINCED ME to go to an art museum. Me, who has a serious gap in my education. No art appreciation or art history classes, and not music classes in all my education. Art is not my strong suit. For most of the modern art I see in museums, I feel like I could do it myself. I definitely "don't get" a lot of art. I feel like Ferris Bueller and his friends starting at a painting at the Chicago Art Museum:

BUT, they talked me into it. Well, Skip did. And I'm glad I went. The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art  is spectacular.

And in it, an original painting of my hero, George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart. Here's my photo of the painting. Blew me away. You can walk right up to it. Worth the entire trip to Arkansas. They purchased it from Christies at auction for over $8Million; it was owned by the NYC library.

THE BACON WAS EXCELLENT. So how does this relate to bacon?   Well, there is a fine dining opportunity in the museum at The Eleven Restaurant, and we took advantage of it. I ordered a bit of bacon as an appetizer and it was outstanding.

THE BACON CRIME WAVE continues. Remember the guy who was found near a dog house, face down with a bag of bacon covered by an 'unknown substance'? Well, they tested the substance and now have the results.

"LYNCHBURG — Amherst County authorities said Wednesday they received lab results revealing the contents of a suspicious bag of bacon found on an armed and masked trespasser last year.

Evan Patrick Cater, 31, of Madison Heights, is charged with wearing a mask in public, public intoxication, carrying a firearm while under the influence and trespassing. The Amherst County Sheriff’s Office has said the charges stem from an incident Oct. 18, when Cater hid behind a dog kennel on a neighbor’s property.

Deputies found Cater wearing camouflage and a mask, armed with a gun and a “suspicious” bag of bacon covered in an unidentified oily substance, the sheriff’s office said.

Suspicions were confirmed Wednesday afternoon when results from a gas chromatography/mass spectrometry test revealed the substance as a combination of methylene chloride and a hydrocarbon compound...

The lab analysis only identifies the atomic structure of substances, but not particular brands or types, he said. While Grieser isn’t a veterinarian, he said common sense leads him to believe the substance would be dangerous for animals to ingest.

“I mean, it’s an industrial solvent. It’s definitely going to cause injury or death,” Grieser said. Exactly what Cater planned to do with the oil-slathered pork remains a mystery. He declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday afternoon.

“On the advice of my attorney I’m going to decline to speak with you on the record about this,” Cater said."

The article is here.

January 31, 2016: A Trip to Orlando & a BACON CRIME WAVE

MY LIFE WITH BACON CONTINUES from the Orlando area where son Jack is participating in the 3D Lacrosse tournament and showcase.

Stopped at a Waffle House in Davenport, FL on Sunday morning for a quick bite. I got the bacon & eggs special. Almost forgot to take a picture. Great, great service, solid food. Bacon excellent.

CRIME WITH BACON

LAST WEEK WE LEARNED OF A BACON CRIME - a man hit his daughter with a package of frozen bacon. A dastardly act. But now there seems to be a virtual crime wave using bacon.

This week, a brother stole the bacon off his brother's sandwich, who, when confronted, attempted to strangle the brother with bacon and threw him down the stairs:

At 1:30 a.m., police were called to an assault off White Top Road, where a man trying to make a sandwich found “all of the bacon was gone but one piece.” When the 44-year-old confronted his brother, 37, about the missing pork, his sibling slapped him into a staircase, then tried to strangle him as he crawled away. Two additional family members intervened in the attack, but the suspect reportedly pushed them both down and made threats to kill his brother. Police observed injuries to the complainant and blood on the stairs, prompting the other man’s arrest.

There must be a contagion going on - in addition to that crime, a ne'er do well out of Sheboygan, Wisconsin decided to attack his mother with a package of bacon. No word on whether the bacon was frozen. Here's the article, and below an extract:

A Sheboygan man is facing battery and disorderly conduct charges, accused of throwing a package of bacon at his mother. Thomas Winkel, 44, is accused of throwing the bacon Jan. 25.

Winkel's mother said Thomas grabbed her wrist and hit her with the bacon, cutting her face. Winkel admitted to throwing the bacon at his mother because she was making him angry. An officer noted that Winkel showed no remorse, and that he appeared to be intoxicated.

And now for the most bizzare - from Huffington Post. A guy was found in camoflague, face down drunk in someone's back yard next to a dog kennel. Aside from having a handgun, the guy had bacon covered with an unknown substance. You can't make this stuff up - article here.

A Virginia man has been charged in a bizarre case that involves what one local newspaper described as "suspicious bacon." 

Last October, Evan Patrick Cater, 31, was allegedly found drunk and lying face-down near a neighbor's dog kennel. He wore camouflage and a mask, and carried both a 9 mm gun and "bacon covered in an unknown substance," according to a news release from the Amherst County Sheriff's Office.

His neighbor, Bobby Wood, called the sheriff's department after spotting Cater in his yard. Cater told deputies he was just relaxing, according to the Lynchburg News and Advance, which dubbed the pork product "a suspicious bag of bacon."

The neighbors have a history: Wood has complained about Cater shooting firearms in his yard, which is part of a "no-shoot zone" that Cater has spoken out against, according to the News and Advance. 

Cater was charged with wearing a mask in public, trespassing, public intoxication and carrying a gun while intoxicated, the paper said. A judge certified the charges to a grand jury this week. 

The UNICODE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE will be approving a new set of emoji for Apple and iPhone platforms, including one for BACON!  Here's the article.