Oh, Romeo and Juliet! If only your families had had something in common! Verily, the love of bacon, perchance?
Bacon worship runs deep in both my husband’s family and mine. It’s the greasy glue that helps us all to bond. We’re thick as thieves. And by thieves, I mean the sort that lurk around the kitchen sneaking just-cooked bacon from between layers of paper towels. So it wasn’t surprising that my mother-in-law thought I should know about bacon cocktails.
Bacon cocktails. An idea that could only come from Chicago. The November 1 Time Out Chicago magazine notes two venues that are serving up the hair of the dog spiked with the belly of the pig.
Osteria via Stato offers the Baconcello, a concoction that blends vodka, green apples, lime, maple syrup, pancetta and bacon. Tasting notes claim the drink is “smoky enough that it will satisfy any and all pork cravings.” Over at Sepia, their Bacon Bloody Mary has the usual ingredients, but in this case the vodka has been infused with bacon.
Bacon definitely seems to be stepping out these days. We found it in a winsome presentation titled Foie Gras Breakfast of Champions, at Bacchus in Milwaukee. The dish included a quail egg, maple syrup and a doll-sized strip of bacon – along with seared foie gras.
I’m reminded that I actually did see bacon stepping out, a few years back in Chicago. Somebody was taking their 300-pound pig—named Bacon—for a stroll along a city street. Bacon’s human pal said the whole neighborhood loved Bacon. A fire once broke out in his house while he was away, the gentleman told me. The neighbors turned out in force, crying to the firefighters, “Save Bacon! Save Bacon!”
I suspect our families would have happily let Bacon fry.
