Alltop

I received a very nice email this morning from a guy named Guy (!)* at Alltop informing me that Bacon the Blog (as I call this) has been added to their update feed, and asking if I'd return the favor. Though, given that he mentions that one can display a badge of the site, and that they "serve over 250,000 badges a day" (what does it mean????**), they probably don't really need me to promote them. There's also a twitter option, if you're hip to that sort of thing. No, I am not on Twitter, and I doubt I ever will be. I find it repugnant as a concept. I have this thing called privacy, and I treasure it. ANYWAYS. Alltop is a one-stop shop for RSS Feeds on a given topic, and they've got one devoted to bacon. Linky linky linky. Good stuff.

*Apologies Guy, you probably hear lame crap like that all the time. 

**I just watched Pineapple Express, so my first thought was of Seth Rogan in a strange costume brandishing a large ham. I dunno. 

Chi-Town Bacon Opportunities

This article intrigues me.

The country fried bacon at the Risque Cafe sounds amazing, but the all-you-can-eat Monday night bacon at Chinaski's, well. Well! I love bacon AND Bukowski! Count me in!

Canned/Precooked Bacon face-off

Ligaya* alerts me to another installment in the Onion AV Club's journey to bacon bliss. This one is a taste test of canned bacon and precooked bacon. Big surprise - can bacon seems to be exactly as disgusting as you'd expect. And the precooked bacon just makes me sad. You save a few minutes, sure. And you take a major hit in taste and mountains of added chemical nonsense. 

*Ligaya didn't request a specific link, but she works with this organization and I wanted to give it a shout-out. I met a lot of the people working there when I was in China last winter, and they're absolute rock stars. Plus, the organization is grass-roots local empowerment at its best, supporting people rather than rolling in with piles of money and running their world for them. It's an amazing organization.

Bacon mayo in the NYTimes

And my dear friend Katie sent me a link to this article in the NYTimes about their competition for the best use of bacon mayo (original recipe for bacon mayo can be found here). I'm not into mayonnaise myself, but I endorse the general sentiment.

Meanwhile, dear readers, the weather in Chicago is turning crispy and autumnal, which means it's time to start working on my winter coat, ie, eat more bacon. So more updates soon.

In the meantime, thanks for the contributions!

Porkopolis

Dan from Porkopolis sends the following email:

Hi culture_vulture,

In this age, the lack of proper support and funding for bacon research is shameful. Your efforts at rooting on through the wastelands of healthful, low fat and meatless menus is commendable. Bravo!! I'd like to suggest a few bacon related items I thought you might like to include at Theories of Bacon:

1)
I just added a new poem to my collection in the Porkopolis Library.
"Bacon" by the cowboy poet Badger Clark:
http://www.porkopolis.org/lib/poetry/clark-b.php
AND
there is also "Song of Bacon" by Roy Blount, Jr.:
http://www.porkopolis.org/lib/poetry/blount-r.php#blount2

2)
Salvador Dali's "Soft Self-portrait with Grilled Bacon" is in the Porkopolis.org Art Museum:
http://www.porkopolis.org/art_gal/dali.php#dali4

3)
And finally, I found this advertising image of Bacon Love at The Museum of Mid-Century Illustration.
What a fun image. Maybe you can develop a blog entry around it? We'll always have bacon...
http://www.plan59.com/av/av192.htm

All of the Porkopolis.org site is available for you to use for bacon research.
I'd appreciate a credit link if any ideas are spawned.

Root on,
Dan

Thanks so much Dan! Keep up the good work!

Its so true

Thanks to the folks at Married to the Sea for the wisdom. And the great comics.

Spaghetti Carbonara

It's not a very appealing picture, and the idea of semi-cooked eggs might make you a bit squeamish, but really, it's so simple to make, and quite tasty.

Spaghetti Carbonara

2-3 strips bacon

1-2 eggs

pasta

parmesan

salt

pepper

Boil water for pasta. Add salt. Coarsely chop the bacon. When the water is boiling, add pasta. Then put the bacon in a frying pan over medium-low heat. As those are in process, grate a handful or two of good parmesan into a bowl. Crack an egg or two into the bowl, and beat with a fork. Add a hefty amount of freshly ground pepper. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and dump in the bowl, tossing it like mad to coat it evenly with egg. The bacon should be nice and crispy at this point, so fold it in as well - though you probably wanna use a slotted spoon or some such device to remove it from the pan, because otherwise your pasta will be ridiculously greasy. 

Ideally, the final result is a somewhat gooey and creamy pasta, with the egg partly cooked and the parmesan partly melted, accentuated by the ground pepper and crispy bacon. 

All in all, it takes less than 10 minutes to make, and is pretty basic. A lot of carbonara recipes involve cream, but I find that it becomes much too heavy that way - the cheese, egg and bacon is already pretty rich. All the same, it's a fairly simple dish, and I'm still trying to think of ways to spice it up a bit. Please to leave comments with any ideas.