That's What She Said

There have been a lot of questionable products married with bacon. Bacon Vodka. Bacon Jelly Beans. Bacon Air Freshener. (speaking of, one of these should be floating around my apartment...) But here is one that is oh-so-right: Jalapeno Bacon.

A) You can eat it.

That's supposed to be a reference to the big bad wolf. It is also, however, fitting for me, huffin and puffin and stuff (you will understand momentarily). A few days ago, to celebrate my birthday, my lady friends took me out for an awesome dinner at Silver Palm, a fun little restaurant tucked away on the west side of the city. You may have heard of this place (if you watch the same outrageous amount of food-related television that I do) as it was featured in Anthony Bourdain's recent trip to Chicago on No Reservations (video below).

It was at Silver Palm that Mr. Bourdain indulged himself in what was, for me, the ultimate pig-related sandwich. I say "pig-related" because it wasn't just a ham sandwich. Or a pork chop sandwich. No, my dear friends, this sandwich was allllll P.I.G. Fried and juicy pork cutlet, topped with tender slices of ham (real ham, not deli ham), topped with crispy BACON (!), topped with melty gruyere cheese, topped with a fried egg, TOPPED WITH an onion ring, all on a buttery brioche bun. "Three Little Pigs" it's called. Oh. Yeah.

Now I trust Tony to steer me in the right direction when it comes to eating. But I was still skeptical. You see, when things are so over-the-top ridiculously indulgent, I tend to think a lot of their hype comes from that alone, not really the taste or quality of whatever food concoction we are talking about. So while I was OF COURSE planning to order this make-me-a-fatty sammy, I wasn't convinced it would live up to it's reputation.

SURPRISE!! I was clearly mistaken, and despite not even wanting this sandwich to be that great (its proximity to my house is waaay too dangerous), it was. It was heavenly. It was also huge. I cut that baby in half, took a bite and passed it around to my four friends who each took a bite. After that, there was still 3/4 of a sandwich left. I finished the first half and promptly wrapped the second to savor later (sometimes leftovers are a happy thing). It took me the better part of 4 days to finish the rest, and each time I went to the fridge, I was impressed by how utterly delicious that sandwich still was. I loved every calorie laden bite of it.

Here's a clip about it from No Reservations. See fo yo self!

I look forward to three day weekends the way little kids look forward to Christmas. For weeks and weeks before the actual weekend I dream of what I will do with THREE WHOLE DAYS. "Vacation" is a foreign word around here, so 72 hours without having to see certain attorneys' stupid faces and without freedom-ruining 'sick day' guilt is pretty much the greatest thing ever.

All that said, you might assume that I would do something spectacular with my wonderful happy extra free time. But you would be wrong. Instead I did all of the normal things I like to do (cook and eat and drink), on a much larger scale. Especially 'eat'. Lots of eating happened this weekend. And when people have asked me today, "So what did you do this weekend?", I've had to refrain from telling them I ate my face off. But it's been hard, because this is how I chronicled my three days:

Thursday: Freedom night: Ceviche and horror.
Sat on the patio at Dunlay's (which I found out is a chain). I searched the menu, hoping that if I stared hard enough a calamari dish might appear to satiate my inexplicable craving for fried squid. But to no avail. So instead I ordered me a real nice Bell's Two Hearted Ale and some ceviche. My beer was delicious. The ceviche not so much. I'm pretty sure it was all prepackaged frozen ingredients. Nuff said.

Erin ordered BBQ Pork Wraps. Sounds tasty yes? Barbecue pig in a fried wrapper. Can't go wrong there, you say. But again, you would be wrong. So wrong it hurts. What appeared before Erin was the disgusting love child of Mao Zedong and Sweet Baby Ray, two people never even meant to meet. Accompanying this horror of a dish was two different types of "sauce", one plum and one a mustard based barbecue sauce. Neither one was too offensive on its own, but they didn't do anything for the wrap. And the wrap needed something to be done because the barbecue pork with the Asian cabbage mix was offensive to my taste buds. I didn't even eat the second roll that I was entitled to. And I've eaten things off the floor. My conclusion is that Asia and the American South are on opposite sides of the planet for a reason. They should stay there.

Friday: Fireworks and potluck! But mostly a good reason to cook!
Feeling rather ambitious I chose to make a pasta salad and just make up the recipe as I saw fit. I was dying to roast some red peppers, as it seems so easy and yet so bad ass. It was. So I made a roasted red pepper sauce to go with wilted spinach and bacon(!). Delectable. Or it could have been had there been enough sauce to moisten the 1.5 lbs of pasta I used. The sauce had too much noodle to cover and so most of the flavors disappeared. I was pretty disappointed with the result, but vowed to fix it as soon as I could get my hands on some more roasted red peppers (fresh or jarred, I did not care).

Ms. Erin on the other hand consulted The Yellow Bible and found a recipe for panzanella. What is panzanella? It is perfection. It is Italian bread salad, so basically toasted bread and tomatoes all gettin it on with garlic and oil and onion. Plus did I mention bread and tomatoes? Seriously, I could have eaten the entire bowl. But Erin had a fork weapon.
We also made chocolate chip cookies. With nuts. I never get nuts in my cookies (laugh, laugh). It's such a delightful treat. I ate at least a dozen of them. Shhhh.

Saturday: Megan feels better about her skillz
Saturday I did not leave my block. This made me happy. Instead I did nothing all day but clean up the aftermath of the previous day's cooking extravaganza. I also popped into the Alb (corner store) to find that they did, in fact, carry a jar of roasted red peppers. It appears to be the only jar of them they have ever carried. I had to wipe about a centimeter of dust and dirt off the container to make sure it was really what I wanted.

At home, I tossed a few more red peps into the food processor, some more oil, and this time some spicy garlic chili sauce that burns my taste buds off but always keeps me coming back for more. I doused that dry ass pasta salad from the day before in my new saucy sauce, added a little more Parmesan and put that biatch in the microwave. What came out was a spicy, rich, cheesy scrumptious bowl of pasta that I couldn't get enough of. It wasn't what I started out trying to make, but like Erin said, "it evolved".

Sunday: Yes my stomach hurts because I ate so much.
Sunday I had foods with Ms. Rachel at Farmerie 58 in River North. Known for local, seasonal ingredients, Farmerie 58 is a lovely place for a brunch on a sunny July Sunday. I had the sour cherry french toast topped with hazelnuts and bourbon syrup. It was sweet and tart and a nice change from regular french toast. The crispy little potato pancake on the side pleased me too, as I am a sucker for the sweet/savory contrast. A tasty meal to start the day. Note "start".

Shortly thereafter, I met up with Erin to visit Taste of Chicago. Because, evidently, I needed to eat again. After avoiding The Taste last year, I guess I forgot why. Now I remember: because it's crowded and hot and crowded some more. Overall it's not worth the excursion or the prices, but I had a couple yummy bites. Since most of our tickets went toward assy beer, we were left to choose a few things we could get sample sizes of.

• Cheese empanada, yum! But there was a cinnamon flavor sometimes present in Mexican food that I can generally do without.
• Taro root french fries! MMMmm. Taro root is something I have only recently discovered, and let me tell you, I was missing out. Starchy like a potato, but sweet and creamy when cooked, taro root is really good in soups and other fried concoctions (like Chinese dumplings). It was only a matter of time before I met it in its fry form. Yum yum.
• Cajun meatballs - Spicy as balls. I don't know who was the first person to grind up some meat and put it in sphere form, but I'm glad they did.

This week I finished reading Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything, in which the penultimate (that’s right bitches) chapter is dedicated totally to pies. Coincidentally (...or not!), I also visited the local farmers market, where almost everyone’s booth is overflowing with fresh picked Michigan strawberries. These two circumstances led to a most ambitious pastry endeavor: I couldn’t resist the idea of a perfect strawberry pie made from scratch.

Having never baked an entire pie before, this little project had the potential to be a giant ego shattering disaster. I’m happy to say, however, that it was not. My pie turned out beautifully (at least in my eyes, and mouth), but not without overcoming a few obstacles, such as the skin melting heat in my kitchen.

I started by cleaning my strawberries and mixing the dry ingredients, a recipe which I sort of made up from a few other recipes I had read. Berry pie filling is shockingly simple. Mine looked like this:

• 5 cups fresh strawberries
• ¼ cup and a tablespoon of white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• ½ flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

I will admit that I probably read Steingarten’s pie crust recipe a solid 20 times. In “Pies from Paradise”, he describes his attempt at baking a flawless crust, which he qualifies as “flakey, airy, light, tender, crisp, well-browned and good tasting” all at once. After much research and much practice, Steingarten developed a nearly foolproof technique. And though I was super intimidated by his final method, I was (as usual) seduced by the idea of producing a completely delicious, bad-ass homemade treat and impressing the pants off everyone (remember the four different types of truffles for 30 people last Christmas?).

The instructions for the crust are at least seven pages long, and involve five simple ingredients: shortening/lard/butter, salt, flour, sugar, and water. Steingarten recommends using shortening because it seems to be the easiest, but I used cold butter because I couldn’t get my hands on any Crisco. I have a feeling that the butter is really what made the crust so delicious, but it’s also what caused the most problems for me, because did I mention that I chose to bake this pie on the hottest day of the year so far? In my apartment, without central air, the kitchen was no less than 90 degrees. Why would I do that to myself, you may be wondering. And the answer is simply that it is what happens when you are both a masochist and hedonist.

The crust making process went very well considering the conditions. Toward the end though, it started to melt...apart. But I worked quickly and patched a few pieces together to form the bottom layer. By the time I got around to the top layer (which was originally going to be one solid shell), the dough was so soft that I had to cut it into strips and go with an unwoven lattice top. At first I was disappointed with making that change, but it turned out just fine.

Following the directions in Steingarten's book, I baked the pie for a few minutes at a very high temperature. After checking to make sure that the it had begun browning, I turned down the temperature of the oven and let the pie go for about 40 more minutes.

When I finally removed the pie, I was very pleased with my creation. I was also devastated that I had to wait at least two hours before I could find out how it tasted. Patience is a foreign concept for me.

Ta da!

Last night I was seduced. It happened at about 5:30 in the little basement grocery store in Austin's neighborhood. I was mindlessly wandering the narrow aisles of the store, fumbling with my beer and waiting for Austin to choose her dinner, when I noticed that one of the pints of ice cream in the freezer was staring at me!

I turned to give it the "Hey buddy, I'm not interested in the cellulite and double chin you have to offer, so buzz off" look, when I realized it wasn't just any pint of ice cream. This guy was special. His name was Häagen-Dazs. Dressed in plain, clean white with a classic gold top, he was whispering something to me...

"5". Huh?

Yes, "5" he said. Five what?

"Five ingredients!" he said. Just what I've always wanted in an ice cream! I took another step closer, examining this foreign pint of goodness, considering how perfect and pure my seducer appeared. It wouldn't take much for him and his five ingredients to seal the deal with me. And it turns out he knew just the right way to do it.

All of the sudden, I was face to face with the foggy glass, checking out the flavor selection. Now I don't usually go for Häagen-Dazs, I try my best to remain loyal to my suga-daddies Ben and his pal Jerry. But before I knew it, H-D was offering me something Ben and Jerry never had.

Brown Sugar.


WHAT?! That's the most bad-ass ice cream flavor ever! Within about ten seconds I was walking with my new lover on my arm to introduce him to Austin. She wasn't entirely impressed. Brown sugar isn't her type. "Whatevs," I thought, "This is the beginning of a long and happy relationship".

We got back to apartment and I figured I would spare Austin the discomfort of watching me get down with my dreamy friend, and the added suspense could only serve to make that first touch to my lips all the better. Even at home later, I waited until Erin went to bed before I got cozy with Häagen-Dazs. And then I did.

I love bacon. Bacon bacon bacon. I love bacon on everything. In everything. Bacon by itself. Bacon with breakfast, swimming in syrup. Bacon in salads, defiling their purity. Bacon on a sandwich, delicately woven into a perfect bacony meaty patty. Bacon is a gift to humans, a salty, fatty delicious gift, and no one should ever refuse such a gift.



Lately, however, I’ve had to grapple with the idea of giving up meat. It’s that whole we’re-destroying-the-world-and-there-is-something-we-can-do-about-it thing. Read any article that’s serious about helping the environment and you’ll find that decreasing the amount of meat you eat has a more positive impact on the earth than recycling plastics and driving hybrids combined. And ya know, it’s good for your body and stuff too.

FROWN. But what about baaaaaaaacon? I’m the girl who on a recent trip to Vegas, where buffets rule, wanted nothing more than to stand in front of a giant catering tray filled with the fatty meaty strips. It’s all I could talk about. I can’t give up bacon. “Just say no” to bacon? HA! The mere idea of it is difficult to resist, and we’re not even talking rejecting it when the smell is wafting ever so enticingly from a nearby griddle. I mean, what chance do I really have?

Still, bacon-obsessed and forced to consider betraying my true love for reasons greater than I, an inner conflict rages over the thought of forsaking this porky delight. I feel guilty that I don’t even want to do it (sorry Mother Earth). And then that guilt mixes with the always present guilt of eating bacon at all (you know that’s why it’s so good). And the result is just one big guilty bacon mess that only makes me want to eat it all the more!

Sigh. What's a girl to do? Distraught that I may have to put an end to my bacon indulgences, I contemplated my problem on the train the other day, where it occurred to me that perhaps I shall bargain with the environment (Monty Hall was my child nickname).

“Earth,” I said, “I’ll (one day) give you beef, chicken, and all other pork products, but in return, you must give me bacon. A compromise, you see. Give up everything but bacon. How does that sound?”

And with that, the universe answered my question.
“BACoN,” it said.

“BACoN” here, “BACoN” there. It appeared written in light blue graffiti on the wall of two buildings I pass everyday. That’s right. Someone was speaking to me! Tagging walls with pork product pleasantries.
“Yes, Megan, of course you can keep eating bacon!”

So with that little wink from the gods, I begin my journey. Less chicken. Less beef. And enough bacon to keep my ass plump and porky.

I had an IM conversation with fellow blogger, Megan, today that went a little something (or exactly) like this:

me: I am DYYYYING

When I started college, I was skinny. Not skin and bones or anything; I've always been a healthy girl. But I was thin. And cute.

Now I am merely cute. Sometimes.

Everyone has heard of the "freshman fifteen" and I was no exception in receiving that little gift. I discovered booze in college and nursed quite the love affair with it. I ate my share of late night pizzas and learned that nothing cures a hangover like Chinese food. Plus your sleep patterns are off, your lifestyle is weird, and when you are not stuffing your face with greasy takeout you are trying desperately to find anything edible in the cafeteria, which often leads to a high-carb intake.

So I wasn't totally shocked (or even dismayed) when I packed on an extra few pounds during college. What I didn't count on was that changing my lifestyle so dramatically in those years produced some really negative habits that have caused me to grow, and grow, and keep growing.

And that brings me to today, overweight and bearing little self-control to do anything to fix it. I should say that my husband (law student, remember?) and I are living on a very meager income; he's a full-time student and won't have a job during school until the fall. As a receptionist I don't exactly bring home the big bucks. So we eat a lot of pasta and things that are cheap and that we can stretch into multiple meals. Also I should mention that Zack and I have, well, different culinary leanings, so compromise is a must since we can't afford to diverge much on meals. Which means that I often sacrifice the healthier, more expensive, "rabbit food" for the less expensive, definitely less healthy "man food."

ANYWAY...

So, I have all these excuses for why I can't eat super healthy all the time. But then I realized that I just really like to eat, so I can't blame all my bad food choices on Zack (sorry honey!). I will pop open a snack at any time. Also I realized that it takes way too much food to make me feel uncomfortably full. A couple years ago I couldn't finish my food at restaurants. Now I am cleaning my plate and asking for a dessert menu (okay, maybe not really, but the difference between now and then is significant). I suspect that what's going on here is that I've become an emotional eater; or maybe I always was one and the stress of adulthood has just freed it in me.

And this last thing is something I can't stress enough:

I hate exercise.

Yes, it makes me feel good and powerful and strong. I like the endorphin rush as much as the next person. But for me, getting motivated to exercise is like trying to gear yourself up for that medical procedure you've been putting off; once it's over you can't exactly remember why you thought it would be so awful, but you continue to dread medical procedures regardless.

The gym is my own personal torture chamber, with all those cute perky distance runners and the buff guys lifting our combined bodyweight on the bench press. Sigh. I can't help but feel like that will never be me.

Alright so you've been patient with my little pity party here, and I appreciate that. I didn't write this to make people feel sorry for me, or to air the fact that I have no self control (well, maybe a little I did, on that last point). I am saying these things in public so that hopefully I will take control of myself and do something to start losing weight. I just need to be consistent and to remember that I am the boss of me; my hormones and my stomach and my emotions do not control my eating habits, my mind does.

So, Mind, just say no to Wendy's next time, okay? Thanks.