The United States of Bacon

Tomorrow is election day...  finally.  It's been a long, hard, ugly summer of campaigning, pitting formerly friendly neighbors against each other.  People are afraid to read their friend's Facebook posts, and more frightened, still, of answering the phone.  Millions of trees have died in order that I might have fistfuls of election fliers jamming up my mail box on a daily basis.  Bob and I have taken to watching TV with the sound down, so we don't have to listen to all of the campaign ads on the airwaves.

But tomorrow, it will be be decided, one or way or another.  And red or blue, we're all in this together.  We need each other for this country to prosper.  I suggest that it's up to us to find again the things we all have in common.  

My own prescription for national healing is bacon.  It is one of the things that America does so much better than any other country.  And I know whereof I speak on that, having grown up mostly in London, England, and being half French.  I have eaten, and enjoyed, the bacon of many countries...  England, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, just to name a few.  But nobody, NOBODY does bacon like the United States of America.

American bacon is the perfect blend of salt, fat and sumptuous smokiness...
and there's nothing I don't love about it, from the way it smells as it cooks, to the way its flavour enhances every other ingredient it touches.  Of the 95 pounds of pig in our downstairs freezer, 8 of them are bacon.  That makes me very happy.

For our first bacon dish, we decided to do our take on a tradition... BLT... with an E.  I bought Breadsmith French Peasant bread, and cut it into thick slices.  I fried up the bacon until it was just crispy.  I sliced the last of our farmer's market tomatoes.  And I added a farmer's market fried egg on top.  I didn't skimp on the mayo, with plenty of fresh ground pepper, and I added a layer of fig preserves on one side, because I really love the little hint of sweetness. A leaf or two of iceberg lettuce... and it was perfection.  Served with homemade pickled baby carrots, and a tart green salad.

Now it's true that not everybody can eat bacon...  and I'm not suggesting that people who can't or won't eat bacon are any less American than the rest of us.  I'm grateful for them, actually, because it means more bacon for me.  

But we've got to start somewhere...  and I'm starting with a BLT.  Maybe I'll make one for the neighbors.

God bless America.  I'm feeling better about politics already.