Bacon cook-off winner and enough with the bacon!

I mentioned the Baconfest Cook-off awhile back - well, it came and went, and nobody hooked me up with a free ticket. But you can read about the winners, and the entries, in the Reader. They sound pretty tasty - nothing too wild, aside from maybe the vanilla bacon ice cream.

Meanwhile David Tamarkin at Time Out Chicago says enough with the bacon already people!

And look - he's got a point. I am (obviously) a person who likes bacon. I enjoy cooking with it, and particularly exploring its versatility and the unexpected joy it can add to other things. I started this blog mostly to post bacon recipes - I'd been thinking of doing a food blog for awhile (and occasionally regret that I didn't) - and then figuring, hey, there's all kinds of weird bacon-related stuff out there, I can totally keep a blog going on this. But yeah, personally - the t-shirts, the stickers, the paraphenelia - it's pretty over-the-top. Unlike Tamarkin, I'm all for bacon fest and discovering new ways to eat bacon, but the accessorizing is kind of ridiculous. Though come to think of it, I do have bacon band-aids, and they're pretty awesome. Also, Tamarkin is incorrect - bacon and chocolate can be a fantastically delicious combination. You don't need to be a bacon lover to appreciate it.