Baconny Bacon!

I love bacon. I am eternally grateful that I was born and raised in a religion that doesn't forbid the eating of pork because I am fairly certain I would feel a gaping hole in my life where it's salty, greasy goodness should be. When the weather people started predicting apocalyptic amounts of snow recently, the first thing I did was open the freezer and check my bacon supply. I counted 6 different kinds so I figured I just might survive. OK, I confess, it's not so much 6 kinds of bacon as bacon from 6 different sources but each has its own distinct personality.

Double Smoked Bacon from Smokehouse of the Catskills in Saugerties, NY

If I could have only one bacon for the rest of my life, this would be it. Their bacon is so meaty and delicious; it's like eating a piece of pork. It is also an excellent base for any recipe that starts with bacon. My oldest and dearest friend lives in Saugerties. I claim to go visit her a couple of times a year but in reality, I sleep at her house when I go up to get bacon. Luckily, she knows this and understands completely. When she came down for Christmas, she gave me 2 lbs of bacon. I gave her 2 packages of Berger's Cookies. There is a reason we have been friends for 30 years.

Farmer's Market/Butcher Bacon

Unfortunately, the best farmer's market in my neighborhood is n Wednesday afternoon. My boss is unsympathetic to my requests to take the afternoon off to see if there's anything good at the market this week. Fortunately, I work right down the street from a Pennsylvania Dutch Market so every Thursday or Friday, I can pop by and pick up some Amish country bacon.

Thanks to Baltimore Magazine's "2009 Best of" edition, I finally have a butcher. It's no Smokehouse of the Catskills but J. W. Treuth & Sons in Oella comes pretty close. The upside to picking up bacon at a butcher is you can also grab some real ground beef while you are there. Treuth's is so full service they even have an excellent cheddar most days. If only they had hamburger buns and fries, it would be a one-stop shopping experience for one of my favorite dinners.

I have been addicted to Top Chef on Bravo since the first season so when I found myself in the Quarry Lake shopping center with a Fresh Market, I had to check it out. I'm not sure I would want to try and find the ingredients to cater an entire wedding that night in there but they do have Nueske's Applewood Smoked Bacon. Charles Kimball and his merry band of taste testers in America's Test Kitchen rated Nueske's really poorly but can you really trust a guy who cooks in a bowtie? Personally, I love Nueske's.

Supermarket Bacon

Let's face it, sometimes you can't get to the farmer's market, the butcher, or Upstate NY and you have to buy bacon at the grocery store. I keep an eye out for sales on the premium, center cut stuff and stock up the freezer. There are also certain recipes that just work better with grocery store bacon, especially ones that require crumbled bacon like Cheese and Bacon Crackers. The meaty quality of really good bacon actually works against you in that case.

So you see, having 6 kinds of bacon makes perfect sense.