Bacon Fail/Prosciutto Win

It's been a while, hasn't it?

It's not that I haven't been eating, so much as I have been completely forgetting to take pictures altogether. And when I do take pictures, I forget to upload them because my htc Whatever S phone won't show the pictures I've taken if the card is too full. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

But I did take pictures of my porc cookery!

When I was at the butcher's getting my all-naturally-raised, hormone-free, free-range. antibiotic-free, locally-sourced meat, I saw that the butcher's had thick-cut "Danish style" bacon. I had no idea what that was, but it looked good. The kid behind the counter -- the butcher's nephew, I believe -- told me it was way better than regular bacon because it was thick cut. So I bought 8 slices.

The next morning, I made 4 slices of bacon. I'm going to admit that I'd never fried bacon before that moment. I had either let Spousal Unit do it, or I'd let my mom do it. So I had to look up how to fry bacon.

The Internets told me that the best thing to do was to make one layer of bacon covering the entire pan, and let the pan warm up with the bacon in it. Then, once the bacon started to sizzle, you let it cook for 6 minutes per side.

I did that. The first problem I ran into was that my bacon was longer than my pan. I had bacon edges running up the sides of the pan. The other problem I ran into was that the pan was not warming up uniformly. This may have been because the slice of bacon on one side was just slightly bigger than the slice on the other side.

The next problem I ran into was that once the bacon started sizzling, it started to attack me! It was spitting grease at me like nobody's business! I put the pan lid up and used it as a shield. I got the baking soda out of the fridge and prepared myself to put out a grease fire.

The source of my humiliation

Fortunately, while I did burn the bacon, I did not start a fire.

The bacon tasted pretty good, even though it was slightly burnt. But I didn't try frying the last 4 slices. Instead we cut them up and used them in black bean soup (not pictured). It made tasty black bean soup.

The next day I decided to try something else to satisfy my still-unrequited desire for bacon: I decided to bake some prosciutto.

My mom had made prosciutto chips as a garnish for salads a few times and they had been really tasty (the only good part of the salads, for the most part). I knew they were baked, not fried, so I didn't have to worry about the prosciutto attacking me with grease. It sounded fool-proof.

And it was!

For the first time ever something I tried from an online recipe worked out perfect! I mean, beside the Martha Stewart one-bowl muffins. Those were good.

But seriously, the prosciutto chips were easy to make and were absolutely fantastic! I just layered the prosciutto on parchment paper and baked them for 10min (I think I baked them at 375F or 400F). Then I took them out, put them on a rack to cool, and ate them.

My redemption.

And so my weekend was a time of sadness and rejoicing.

Eggs: In Greasiness and In Health

My new trainer -- the 24yo ultra-buff rugby player -- practically begged me to switch from fried eggs to soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. I told him I'd try it. And I did.

It tasted less like cardboard than I expected.

It wasn't as awful as I thought it would be, but contrary to what he claimed, I still needed to sprinkle a generous amount of salt all over the eggs to make them tasty.

I had them atop honey whole wheat bread to make the breakfast super-duper ultra healthy. And that whole wheat bread? It wasn't the supermarket variety with glucose-fructose -- it was the all-natural variety from the hippy bakery. It was somewhat cardboardish, but not as much as I expected.

If you fry whole wheat bread in olive oil, it's totally healthy.

But then I slipped back into my old ways. I really wanted a tasty breakfast, so I decided to make myself Italian Hash the Way My Mom Made It. I made it with the whole wheat bread, though, so it was somewhat healthy. And the oil was olive oil, so it was heart-healthy, too! It's the, um, Mediterranean Diet.

The Dark Side

A friend of mine who works downtown in a hipper, more socially-responsible job than me, had the day off and decided to come up to the 'burbs to have lunch with me.  She's a vegetarian and so I figured she'd want to go to the panini place or the cheap-but-excellent Industrial Park Indian buffet. (The Indian buffet in the industrial park just south of the business park really is very good, but I was unable to take a picture when I ate there.  I had gone with civilized people and it's not OK to take pictures of empty, filthy place when you're in polite company.)

But for some reason my very cool, very hip, very vegetarian and very anti-establishment friend wanted to go to a chain restaurant that was reminiscent of the movie Office Space, only a bit more upscale.

We walked in and she exclaimed, "This place is full of men!"  And I was like, duh, it's a high-tech business park, what do you expect?  If we had gone to the panini place just outside the business park -- which, incidentally, makes an awesome veggie sandwich -- there would have have been more women.

Anyways.  I had the fish and chips because it seemed safe.  She had the fish tacos because there were no reasonable vegetarian options (surprise!) and she's actually a fishetarian.

She finished her fish tacos, but I couldn't finish my two giant, extra-oily battered fish fillets with extra-salty fries, so I got a doggy bag.

"Fat, I am your father."

The panini place might have been better, but I would never have experienced a black take-out container that reminded me of Darth Vader's dirty helmet at the beginning of Star Wars. (Though I suspect George Lucas scrubbed it for his digitally remastered abominations).

Grease is the Word

My mom made me breakfast.  It was an Italian version of hash made with stale baguette, chunks of parmiggiano cheese and eggs.  It was the most revolting, greasy mass of food I'd ever tasted.

Basically what my mom did was warm up some olive oil in a skillet and then she threw in the baguette  chunks.  While those were frying/sauteing, she cut up small cubes of parmiggiano.  When the bread had fried up and absorbed a lot of the oil, she threw in the cheese and some hot pepper flakes, and mixed it all up.  Once the cheese started to melt, she cracked two eggs into the oily mass and fried them.  The yolks broke, of course, and spilled all over the fried bread. 

It's going to take more than just Dawn to clean up that grease!

In the plate, it looked like a giant mass of oily stuff with egg yolk all over it.  I had a moment where I considered not eating it.  I was like, "What the hell, Mom?  Is this some kind of a joke?"  My mom rolled her eyes and told me that  my dad loved this dish, and that I could either eat it and shut up or make my own damned breakfast!

Anyways, despite the fact that the grease literally dripped off my fork, I ate the whole thing.  I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

It was the greasiest, most revolting breakfast ever.  EVER.  But it was also the most tastiest breakfast in the history of breakfast!  It was like all these elements in my mouth combined to be the Perfect Storm of umami salty spicy fat to start a morning. 

Damned.

Now I have to try making it myself and I'll probably get evicted for smelling up the floor.