Porky polenta breakfast

The sun was rather too bright when I woke up this morning, to quote Philadelphia Story*, and I was craving grease and grits, but there were none in the house (grits, I mean. There's plenty of grease.). In desperation, I grabbed a bag of fine ground cornmeal and made mush instead (1/4 cup cornmeal, 1 cup of water, cooked over medium heat with salt, stir to break up the lumps). Cornmeal mush is not as tasty as grits, not at all. So I added a bunch of pepper jack, which helped, but still, something was missing. So I forraged in the fridge and found a Garret County Chorizo sausage and a few strips of bacon and fried them up and dumped them on top. Genius. Like chirashi, except with pork and corn instead of fish and rice.

I didn't take a picture, because I was busy shoveling it into my mouth. But trust me, it was tasty. Though grits would have been better.

*Or I thought I was, but I just searched the script online and that line isn't in there. Maybe it's in another movie? Or I'm just misremembering? I need to lie down.

Epic Meal Time

"We built a breakfast fortress... to keep the haters out"

My parents are big fans of these videos. They feature some (clearly professionally trained) chefs designing epic meals of high caloric value, and then eating them. Here's the epic breakfast, much of which does look genuinely delicious. I think it's one of the earlier videos in the series, because it doesn't feature the calorie total in the sidebar, which tends to get pretty mind-blowing.

Most of the videos are pretty incredible. If you like Man vs Food, you'll probably love them.

Homemade Bacon at Double Li

Very tasty. We'd read about this one, maybe, in Time Out Chicago (it was a Best Thing They Ate All Year in 2009 I think?), but it was called pork belly there, and there's nothing on the menu that says pork belly. There's home made bacon and there's pork stomach. We ordered the former, and this is what arrived:

A plate of thin slices of chewy bacon in a pile of snap peas and sliced leeks, flavored with garlic, ginger, and I think some Chinese five spice? Anyhow, it was great.

You can get your own at Double Li, 228 W Cermak Rd, Chicago, IL 60616.

Crif's Dogs, NYC

On a recent trip to NYC, my man and I stopped at Crif's Dogs. We were actually trying to go somewhere else (extra cool points for you if you can guess where), but that didn't work out, because it turns out that most things in NYC involve a 2 hour wait and we're not really into that sort of thing. But I decided to make the most of it, and examined their menu. Obviously I was going to have to try a bacon-wrapped hot dog. I settled on the tsunami, bacon wrapped dog, pineapple, teriyaki, and green onion.

The pineapple was almost certainly from a can, and not a very tasty one at that - it was slightly cold and somewhat flavorless. The teriyaki, when I could taste it, was fantastic and a great compliment to the other flavors involved, but most of the time, I couldn't taste it. The green onions were nice! And the bacon wrapped dog was AWESOME.

In conclusion: hot dogs are better when they're wrapped in bacon.

Rachael Ray's Late Night Bacon

Thanks to Dunx for passing this on: Rachael Ray's recipe for Late Night Bacon. A recipe so incredible it has spawned its own facebook group. Be sure to read the reviews - the best are on page 3 (look especially for MrTopHat's).