Enjoy, but remain assured they were much more satisfying in person.
Showing posts with label bacon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bacon. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2014
June Food Porn
I haven't been posting here lately mostly because I've not had the time or opportunity to wander the woods. That does not mean, however, that I've been shirking my duties in the kitchen. So here, in case you don't follow on other forms of social media, is a photodump of recent culinary travails.
Enjoy, but remain assured they were much more satisfying in person.
Enjoy, but remain assured they were much more satisfying in person.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Into the Fire
Seasons wash over us inexorably and without fail. Hot August nights slip into the cooler days of September, and we know that bird hunting and football will soon be on the menu. The ice softens under our feet as we chance one more wary trip for bluegills, the sun making way for April. During the long drive home from deer camp many of us stave off the soul-crushing depression of returning to the world with thoughts of hunting pheasants and squirrels in the blustery snows of December. If time is a human construct, it is in that specific moment that I'd like to meet the guy who invented it, and invent him a cuff upside the kisser.
One season remains immortal, however, nearly unchanged by weather, calendar, or the plight of man. While it can be challenging at times, and it would be occasionally easier to forgo altogether, it is among the most rewarding of all seasons, and therefore must be treated with reverence. And a good deal of fun. While we exist in the sweet, juicy core of it right now, in my world, grilling season lasts all year long.
Before we begin, it must be stated that some part of the fascination with grilling stems from the slightest whiff of pyromania that I think inhabits most of us. Fire enchants us. There wasn't fire, then there was fire, then we didn't die. Pretty simple, really. We stood up, and while our incisors shrank our brain pans grew, we suddenly became capable of mastering it. A million generations of your ancestors had to not die at the icy hands of hypothermia or the jaws of some fearsome Pleistocene beastie for you to be sitting here reading this, and fire is directly linked to that happening. The attraction is programmed within us now.
You can still see those roots, at least in my clan, if you look closely enough. Men stand around meat over flame, congratulating each other on yet another successful hunt. Entire families stare contentedly into the prism of glowing embers, conversation lost to rising smoke and the knowledge that we are all fed and safe, at least for tonight.
I was staggeringly lucky enough to be born to a father who held a deep and abiding relationship with the fire and grill for nearly all of his life. A man who let me play hooky to learn how to build bow & drill fires and cook over a Swedish Fire Torch. A woodsman who made his own fire-starters out of charred cloth, pine pitch, saw dust, and the little paper cups you used to squish your ketchup into at Burger King (my brother and I would swipe them by the pocketful for him). We heated our houses with fire, cooked over it, and occasionally had father-son races to see who could build a fire from scratch the fastest, the object being to burn through a length of twine strung between two stakes a foot off the ground. Only one kitchen match per man was allowed before I was old enough run a flint with any competency, and I seldom won either way.
If my obsession with fire was not honed to a razor's edge by a couple eons of heidelbergensis forefathers surviving, it was pounded into me by a progenitor's obsession. And if he taught me any one thing, it's that you don't touch another man's fire anymore than you'd touch his wife.
The fascination with flame well established, we move on to the other appeal of grilling.
The way I see it, our grilling scenarios break down nicely into three disparate categories.
Firstly, and most often, you have your Home Game. This is the sanctuary, the place where you grill most often and feel most comfortable. Ideally, you grab a beer, linger over the licking flames, poking and prodding until all is sublime with dinner and the world. You can smoke pretty damn good homemade bacon here too, without even really thinking about it. All spoken like a dude sans progeny, I know.
In any case, this is the place to relax or let it fly as your mood and situation dictates. You're free to stretch your legs and give 'er, or keep it spartan and simple. This is where you're welcome to grill every available foodstuff on the planet without recourse or judgement, or simply char a hot dog. Your call. In my case, it's where pizzas, ingredients for dip and soups, desserts and salads also get grilled. They don't play a big part in the next two testosterone-fueled situations, sadly, but they should. Pistachio stuffed figs... hello? Even John Wayne would smile after he tasted those.
Do whatever you want at home. You want to do a fresh take on easy old school? Coarsely ground local chuck and sirloin, formed into an imperfect, squat cylinder, stuffed with stanky Blue or stringent aged Cheddar, and slabbed on a toasted kaiser with spinach and fresh, fire-roasted salsa? I'm in. You want to get nuts and stuff a lamb shank with the catnip you mistakenly identified as mint down the road? I'm still in. I'll bring a cooler, and run the camera for YouTube. Home is where the grill is.
Secondly in the grilling universe, we have the Away Game category. Not an away game for your team, but away from the comfort and ease of the homestead. I do a fair amount of these for the group, mostly tailgating, and I keep them unabashedly simple. Badger football at home, under twin buttresses of turning leaves and the magic of a college football Saturday, or the beloved Pack in sheets of driven snow, I have exactly four menus in the playbook, and I rotate them blatantly without regret or shame. A few big flank steaks, nice and rare, with some grill-marked ciabatta and a short selection of sauces made beforehand at home to complete belly-warming sandwiches... maybe, just maybe, some caramelized onions or roasted peppers if I'm liking the boys that weekend and it isn't too cold for my hands -- that one seems to be the prevailing favorite.
Our last scenario of the three is the Camping Setup. There was a time when I would scoff at the very thought of calling drinking beer around a fire in state forest, or even more embarrassingly, yards from the trucks in a state park "camping," but alas, that time has passed. It seems to be all that we as a group can muster anymore, and even then, not very frequently. This is where worlds collide on top of the fire.
You have easy access to a cooler, full of all the ingredients you wish to bring, screaming for you to go overboard with the meal plans. You also have no idea what the physical setup of the fire and/or grilling station will be. The Furies are tempting you into a dance that will mostly likely end in your terrible demise.
There is an old stainless grill grate with impossibly weak, little fold-out feet in the basement directly below me as I type this. I won it in a Boy Scout .22 rifle competition as a kid, decades ago, if you can believe that. It remains in a backpack there strictly for this situation.
Honestly, when I'm heading to a campsite in a park with a cooler and a possibly sketchy grilling setup, I bring dinner prepackaged in little foil pouches. Toss them in the coals, and be done with it, no grate necessary. But inevitably, somebody arrives with frozen grocery store patties or chicken breasts, and no idea what to do with them, and that old reliable, apparently invaluable, BSA grill grate saves their evening one more time.
Let us conclude with the Manifesto Portion of this post. This should piss a few people off.
Gas grills are wrong. An abomination. An insult to cows and pigs and chickens everywhere. It is a bold generalization, probably overstated and not always true, but it's how I feel, justifiable or not. If you fire your dinner over propane, God bless you. This is not meant as a judgement of your character, though it may be a judgement of your judgement.
I understand the appeal. All the brushed metal and big fancy knobbery... and you saw that celebrity chef glazing pork chops on one under a lens filter they hadn't used since a Playboy shoot circa 1978. Cool. Shelves and sinks and that snappy little piezo-electric start jolting across the millennial abyss from cave painting to garden party in an instant -- I get it. Gas grills are convenient and fast, relatively clean and easy. And they taste like it.
I ask that you show me one instance of anyone ever, in the history of the universe, winning a major grilling or barbeque contest on a competitive circuit while using propane. Post it in the comments if I'm wrong. I'm wrong all the time. I have no trouble with that.
Not that such contests are the defining measure of cooking with fire. I would make a convincing argument that they are, in fact, the stark antithesis of such. I simply posit that not one competitor has won a nationally recognized competition over strictly gas because we all know the flavor produced is inferior to that produced using charred hardwood chunk. When the crying's done, we're only talking about flavor here, after all.
I'm a purist and a bit of a Luddite, I'll admit. You got me. That combination lends itself to a touch of zealotry sometimes. I much prefer the taste of meats (and fruits and veg) off a hot lump charcoal fire, that's all. If you can't tell the difference, you're not paying attention or you've never been blessed with the chance to try. And that's a shame. I won't turn away your gassed food at the graduation party or wine tasting. I will remain picture of decorum, happy to be amongst friends -- I'm a true believer, not an ass.
Lastly, however you see fit to grill your meal, keep your grates clean. Just because we're firing like cavemen, doesn't mean we should practice their grill hygiene.
One season remains immortal, however, nearly unchanged by weather, calendar, or the plight of man. While it can be challenging at times, and it would be occasionally easier to forgo altogether, it is among the most rewarding of all seasons, and therefore must be treated with reverence. And a good deal of fun. While we exist in the sweet, juicy core of it right now, in my world, grilling season lasts all year long.
Before we begin, it must be stated that some part of the fascination with grilling stems from the slightest whiff of pyromania that I think inhabits most of us. Fire enchants us. There wasn't fire, then there was fire, then we didn't die. Pretty simple, really. We stood up, and while our incisors shrank our brain pans grew, we suddenly became capable of mastering it. A million generations of your ancestors had to not die at the icy hands of hypothermia or the jaws of some fearsome Pleistocene beastie for you to be sitting here reading this, and fire is directly linked to that happening. The attraction is programmed within us now.
You can still see those roots, at least in my clan, if you look closely enough. Men stand around meat over flame, congratulating each other on yet another successful hunt. Entire families stare contentedly into the prism of glowing embers, conversation lost to rising smoke and the knowledge that we are all fed and safe, at least for tonight.
I was staggeringly lucky enough to be born to a father who held a deep and abiding relationship with the fire and grill for nearly all of his life. A man who let me play hooky to learn how to build bow & drill fires and cook over a Swedish Fire Torch. A woodsman who made his own fire-starters out of charred cloth, pine pitch, saw dust, and the little paper cups you used to squish your ketchup into at Burger King (my brother and I would swipe them by the pocketful for him). We heated our houses with fire, cooked over it, and occasionally had father-son races to see who could build a fire from scratch the fastest, the object being to burn through a length of twine strung between two stakes a foot off the ground. Only one kitchen match per man was allowed before I was old enough run a flint with any competency, and I seldom won either way.
If my obsession with fire was not honed to a razor's edge by a couple eons of heidelbergensis forefathers surviving, it was pounded into me by a progenitor's obsession. And if he taught me any one thing, it's that you don't touch another man's fire anymore than you'd touch his wife.
The fascination with flame well established, we move on to the other appeal of grilling.
 | ||
| I'm a Cheesehead. Did you honestly think the pic wasn't going to be of brats? |
 | ||
| ...and in the grilling basket with my beloved veggie friends. Weirdos. |
The way I see it, our grilling scenarios break down nicely into three disparate categories.
Firstly, and most often, you have your Home Game. This is the sanctuary, the place where you grill most often and feel most comfortable. Ideally, you grab a beer, linger over the licking flames, poking and prodding until all is sublime with dinner and the world. You can smoke pretty damn good homemade bacon here too, without even really thinking about it. All spoken like a dude sans progeny, I know.
In any case, this is the place to relax or let it fly as your mood and situation dictates. You're free to stretch your legs and give 'er, or keep it spartan and simple. This is where you're welcome to grill every available foodstuff on the planet without recourse or judgement, or simply char a hot dog. Your call. In my case, it's where pizzas, ingredients for dip and soups, desserts and salads also get grilled. They don't play a big part in the next two testosterone-fueled situations, sadly, but they should. Pistachio stuffed figs... hello? Even John Wayne would smile after he tasted those.
Do whatever you want at home. You want to do a fresh take on easy old school? Coarsely ground local chuck and sirloin, formed into an imperfect, squat cylinder, stuffed with stanky Blue or stringent aged Cheddar, and slabbed on a toasted kaiser with spinach and fresh, fire-roasted salsa? I'm in. You want to get nuts and stuff a lamb shank with the catnip you mistakenly identified as mint down the road? I'm still in. I'll bring a cooler, and run the camera for YouTube. Home is where the grill is.
Secondly in the grilling universe, we have the Away Game category. Not an away game for your team, but away from the comfort and ease of the homestead. I do a fair amount of these for the group, mostly tailgating, and I keep them unabashedly simple. Badger football at home, under twin buttresses of turning leaves and the magic of a college football Saturday, or the beloved Pack in sheets of driven snow, I have exactly four menus in the playbook, and I rotate them blatantly without regret or shame. A few big flank steaks, nice and rare, with some grill-marked ciabatta and a short selection of sauces made beforehand at home to complete belly-warming sandwiches... maybe, just maybe, some caramelized onions or roasted peppers if I'm liking the boys that weekend and it isn't too cold for my hands -- that one seems to be the prevailing favorite.
Our last scenario of the three is the Camping Setup. There was a time when I would scoff at the very thought of calling drinking beer around a fire in state forest, or even more embarrassingly, yards from the trucks in a state park "camping," but alas, that time has passed. It seems to be all that we as a group can muster anymore, and even then, not very frequently. This is where worlds collide on top of the fire.
You have easy access to a cooler, full of all the ingredients you wish to bring, screaming for you to go overboard with the meal plans. You also have no idea what the physical setup of the fire and/or grilling station will be. The Furies are tempting you into a dance that will mostly likely end in your terrible demise.
There is an old stainless grill grate with impossibly weak, little fold-out feet in the basement directly below me as I type this. I won it in a Boy Scout .22 rifle competition as a kid, decades ago, if you can believe that. It remains in a backpack there strictly for this situation.
Honestly, when I'm heading to a campsite in a park with a cooler and a possibly sketchy grilling setup, I bring dinner prepackaged in little foil pouches. Toss them in the coals, and be done with it, no grate necessary. But inevitably, somebody arrives with frozen grocery store patties or chicken breasts, and no idea what to do with them, and that old reliable, apparently invaluable, BSA grill grate saves their evening one more time.
Let us conclude with the Manifesto Portion of this post. This should piss a few people off.
Gas grills are wrong. An abomination. An insult to cows and pigs and chickens everywhere. It is a bold generalization, probably overstated and not always true, but it's how I feel, justifiable or not. If you fire your dinner over propane, God bless you. This is not meant as a judgement of your character, though it may be a judgement of your judgement.
I understand the appeal. All the brushed metal and big fancy knobbery... and you saw that celebrity chef glazing pork chops on one under a lens filter they hadn't used since a Playboy shoot circa 1978. Cool. Shelves and sinks and that snappy little piezo-electric start jolting across the millennial abyss from cave painting to garden party in an instant -- I get it. Gas grills are convenient and fast, relatively clean and easy. And they taste like it.
I ask that you show me one instance of anyone ever, in the history of the universe, winning a major grilling or barbeque contest on a competitive circuit while using propane. Post it in the comments if I'm wrong. I'm wrong all the time. I have no trouble with that.
Not that such contests are the defining measure of cooking with fire. I would make a convincing argument that they are, in fact, the stark antithesis of such. I simply posit that not one competitor has won a nationally recognized competition over strictly gas because we all know the flavor produced is inferior to that produced using charred hardwood chunk. When the crying's done, we're only talking about flavor here, after all.
I'm a purist and a bit of a Luddite, I'll admit. You got me. That combination lends itself to a touch of zealotry sometimes. I much prefer the taste of meats (and fruits and veg) off a hot lump charcoal fire, that's all. If you can't tell the difference, you're not paying attention or you've never been blessed with the chance to try. And that's a shame. I won't turn away your gassed food at the graduation party or wine tasting. I will remain picture of decorum, happy to be amongst friends -- I'm a true believer, not an ass.
Lastly, however you see fit to grill your meal, keep your grates clean. Just because we're firing like cavemen, doesn't mean we should practice their grill hygiene.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The Day the Bacon Died
We should all endeavor to shun the Interstate highways a little more often.
I know, you have to get where you're going, always late, always go go go, but doing so numbs us to all that we're missing out in the country. We sometimes complain about living in "Fly-over Land" here in the mid-west, how the coasts ignore us, how far Washington is removed from the problems on the ground. Then we put on the blinders, set the cruise, and bee-line it to our destination, and we're doing the same thing to our own state.
Dad preferred back-roading, and therefore, so do I. It's all about what you grew up with. Of course there are times when hitting the blue highways is not the answer. When I'm heading up to camp it's four lanes and 75 on the speedometer as far as they will take me. Or sometimes you're at the end of one of those interminable road trips, all ragged and jumpy on sleep deprivation and caffeine. That's a time set the cruise, and follow the herd back to the shack. But other times you just have to leave the herd aside.
Highway 35, as it traces it's way alongside the Mississippi River from Prescott to Prairie du Chien is one of my favorite drives in Wisconsin. All the waterfowl and river panoramas not withstanding, I never would've found those fresh cheese curds, still warm and super squeaky, if it weren't for that drive. It takes more than an hour longer than I-94 coming back to Madison from the Twin Cities, but it's completely worth it. And I can stop in Pepin, and shoot the breeze with Adam, which is always nice.
I seldom drive back from camp or Brian's house, my two main hunting and fishing destinations, by the same route. The Gazateer is my loyal companion. You are somewhat limited by the number of roads, but there's always that wonderfully enticing moment at a stop sign in the sticks...
Ah, what the hell, let's see what's over this way...
It used to drive Erin insane, never being able to figure out exactly where we were or how far we were from home. The truth is, sometimes I didn't know either, and that's part of the fun. Heading, say, southeast-ish until you stumble upon a road or village you recognize is good fun. At least for me.
There are rustic roads, beautiful vistas, and cool historical markers that I always try to stop and read; but the real appeal for me is the unknown. What could be around the next bend -- just like floating a river.
It does feel like you're going to see more wildlife most of the time because you are going slower, but I'm not sure about that one. You do have to pay more attention to curves and slow-moving tractors suddenly blipping up out of nowhere, so you might actually be looking in the fields less. It is easier to zone out on a massive ribbon of concrete and re-bar, coasting along with the flow and peeping for turkeys and deer. More research is obviously required.
The crown jewels of these jaunts off the main drag are the little food producers you stumble upon. If you're tailgating me when I lay new eyes on an apple orchard or indie cheesemaker (and you will be because I drive as fast as a Revolutionary War vet with bad cataracts), you best be paying attention. I'm gonna clamp on the binders late, and fishtail into that gravel driveway.
Which is precisely how we found the greatest bacon I've ever had. Brian discovered a tiny general store out past the middle of creation on one of his trips off the four-lane. Nothing more than a small converted gas station, it was a gold mine. It was a bit "Country Austere" for the city crowd, if that's a thing, and that was fine with us. The meat counter was fully stocked, there was a crock full of stunningly huge and delicious pickles, and the owners were behind the counter, always ready to answer questions, slice up a hunk of cow or pig, or simply chat. It was so small and poorly advertised that I went there for years before I learned the name -- Johnstown Food Center.
And the bacon. Smokey, perfectly salted,... I'm gonna say it... sultry slabs of gorgeous bacon. The single most delicious slices of swine to ever pass the lips of this humble scribe. They cured and smoked it on-site, sliced it to your specifications, and wrapped it for you on the spot. I don't know the owners, so I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure the stooped gentleman with the shock of white hair toiling over the stainless machines in back was running the show, and that at some point in his long life, he'd stumbled upon Aladdin's Lamp, and asked for the world's perfect bacon recipe. It was, to employ an overused term of the day to it's full meaning, epic. Flat-out porcine perfection.
We're all familiar with the current and surprisingly long-lived bacon fad. And I'm all for some loving on salty sweet smoked pork belly. Bacon can be downright sexy, no doubt about it. But, as often happens in a craze, there is an awful lot of racing to the bottom out there -- lots of truly loathsome, heinous bacon. Chemically injected, liquid smoked crap. The cheap shit in every grocery store and quickie-mart. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not even in the same league. We're talking about bacon that made you pause, bacon that left you wondering where it had been your entire life.
Johnstown Food Center is closed now, lost to the economy and aging proprietorship I'm assuming, so we were forced to go to another bacon purveyor for deer camp (if you're still buying grocery store bacon or not making your own, why are you even still reading this?).
Maplewood Meats is another fine meat shop a little off the beaten path. We've had our venison processed there for years, and everything we've ever ordered has been excellent. The German summer sausage and brats are particularly outstanding, and the bacon is very, very good. 2011 National Grand Champion Bacon, as a matter of fact, but all the boys in camp agree, it can't quite beat the "Gas Station Bacon," as it's known in camp, that we lost from Johnstown Food Center. I still don't know what Don McLean was talking about when the marching band refused to yield, but I know the day the bacon died.
Farm fresh eggs obviously go hand in hand with quality bacon. If you're gonna drive out of the way, and pull a few extra bucks when you go to the hip for dazzling bacon, why would you sully the entire operation with pasty, bland eggs from the grocery store? Don't be a chump.
I know, you have to get where you're going, always late, always go go go, but doing so numbs us to all that we're missing out in the country. We sometimes complain about living in "Fly-over Land" here in the mid-west, how the coasts ignore us, how far Washington is removed from the problems on the ground. Then we put on the blinders, set the cruise, and bee-line it to our destination, and we're doing the same thing to our own state.
Dad preferred back-roading, and therefore, so do I. It's all about what you grew up with. Of course there are times when hitting the blue highways is not the answer. When I'm heading up to camp it's four lanes and 75 on the speedometer as far as they will take me. Or sometimes you're at the end of one of those interminable road trips, all ragged and jumpy on sleep deprivation and caffeine. That's a time set the cruise, and follow the herd back to the shack. But other times you just have to leave the herd aside.
Highway 35, as it traces it's way alongside the Mississippi River from Prescott to Prairie du Chien is one of my favorite drives in Wisconsin. All the waterfowl and river panoramas not withstanding, I never would've found those fresh cheese curds, still warm and super squeaky, if it weren't for that drive. It takes more than an hour longer than I-94 coming back to Madison from the Twin Cities, but it's completely worth it. And I can stop in Pepin, and shoot the breeze with Adam, which is always nice.
I seldom drive back from camp or Brian's house, my two main hunting and fishing destinations, by the same route. The Gazateer is my loyal companion. You are somewhat limited by the number of roads, but there's always that wonderfully enticing moment at a stop sign in the sticks...
Ah, what the hell, let's see what's over this way...
It used to drive Erin insane, never being able to figure out exactly where we were or how far we were from home. The truth is, sometimes I didn't know either, and that's part of the fun. Heading, say, southeast-ish until you stumble upon a road or village you recognize is good fun. At least for me.
There are rustic roads, beautiful vistas, and cool historical markers that I always try to stop and read; but the real appeal for me is the unknown. What could be around the next bend -- just like floating a river.
It does feel like you're going to see more wildlife most of the time because you are going slower, but I'm not sure about that one. You do have to pay more attention to curves and slow-moving tractors suddenly blipping up out of nowhere, so you might actually be looking in the fields less. It is easier to zone out on a massive ribbon of concrete and re-bar, coasting along with the flow and peeping for turkeys and deer. More research is obviously required.
The crown jewels of these jaunts off the main drag are the little food producers you stumble upon. If you're tailgating me when I lay new eyes on an apple orchard or indie cheesemaker (and you will be because I drive as fast as a Revolutionary War vet with bad cataracts), you best be paying attention. I'm gonna clamp on the binders late, and fishtail into that gravel driveway.
Which is precisely how we found the greatest bacon I've ever had. Brian discovered a tiny general store out past the middle of creation on one of his trips off the four-lane. Nothing more than a small converted gas station, it was a gold mine. It was a bit "Country Austere" for the city crowd, if that's a thing, and that was fine with us. The meat counter was fully stocked, there was a crock full of stunningly huge and delicious pickles, and the owners were behind the counter, always ready to answer questions, slice up a hunk of cow or pig, or simply chat. It was so small and poorly advertised that I went there for years before I learned the name -- Johnstown Food Center.
And the bacon. Smokey, perfectly salted,... I'm gonna say it... sultry slabs of gorgeous bacon. The single most delicious slices of swine to ever pass the lips of this humble scribe. They cured and smoked it on-site, sliced it to your specifications, and wrapped it for you on the spot. I don't know the owners, so I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure the stooped gentleman with the shock of white hair toiling over the stainless machines in back was running the show, and that at some point in his long life, he'd stumbled upon Aladdin's Lamp, and asked for the world's perfect bacon recipe. It was, to employ an overused term of the day to it's full meaning, epic. Flat-out porcine perfection.
We're all familiar with the current and surprisingly long-lived bacon fad. And I'm all for some loving on salty sweet smoked pork belly. Bacon can be downright sexy, no doubt about it. But, as often happens in a craze, there is an awful lot of racing to the bottom out there -- lots of truly loathsome, heinous bacon. Chemically injected, liquid smoked crap. The cheap shit in every grocery store and quickie-mart. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not even in the same league. We're talking about bacon that made you pause, bacon that left you wondering where it had been your entire life.
Johnstown Food Center is closed now, lost to the economy and aging proprietorship I'm assuming, so we were forced to go to another bacon purveyor for deer camp (if you're still buying grocery store bacon or not making your own, why are you even still reading this?).
Maplewood Meats is another fine meat shop a little off the beaten path. We've had our venison processed there for years, and everything we've ever ordered has been excellent. The German summer sausage and brats are particularly outstanding, and the bacon is very, very good. 2011 National Grand Champion Bacon, as a matter of fact, but all the boys in camp agree, it can't quite beat the "Gas Station Bacon," as it's known in camp, that we lost from Johnstown Food Center. I still don't know what Don McLean was talking about when the marching band refused to yield, but I know the day the bacon died.
You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts. Bacon and Egg Toast Cups.
Farm fresh eggs obviously go hand in hand with quality bacon. If you're gonna drive out of the way, and pull a few extra bucks when you go to the hip for dazzling bacon, why would you sully the entire operation with pasty, bland eggs from the grocery store? Don't be a chump.
Spotting a "Fresh Eggs" sign on the side of the road raises almost as much excitement in me as spotting an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker would in a southern birder. For some reason the radio or Ipod goes off immediately because I'm apparently unable to make a simple turn into a driveway with music playing. That is followed by the slightly uncomfortable walk up the the farmer's door. They put the sign out, they want to sell the eggs, but it still feels a little like trespassing somehow.
The eggs themselves can vary quite a bit. Obviously there's the shell colors, looking like they were died subdued browns, blues, and greens for some kind of camouflage Easter. Shell thickness can also be an adventure too. Sometimes they break when you startle them with a sudden glance, more often you need a tack hammer to make a dent in them, at least compared the the dainty white shells found at the store.
Taste varies as well, depending on how and what the chickens have been eating. This is not a concern with store bought eggs because, obviously, there is no taste. Luckily, I have a buddy who raises chickens, they produce for him consistently, and the eggs are delicious. Deeply lustrous yolks that float on fluffy whites in the frying pan. I love them soft cooked with that enchantingly gooey burnt orange yolk just barely oozing. God Bless America, and pass the AED.
I believe at last count there were roughly 32 gajillion small creameries and cheese makers in rural Wisconsin. In some parts of the state, you can barely crest a knoll without seeing a sign for fresh curds. We can cover the love of independent cheese wizardry in another post. A guy could drive for days living on the craft of these artisans alone. And fresh strawberries taken back to a parent's home to be converted into glorious jams and pies I happily trade chores for. The caramel goodness of apple cider, freshly squeezed in an antique press from apples you just picked.
The opportunities for roadside ambrosia are nearly limitless, but almost none of them can be found following nose-to-tail like a drone down the Interstate highway.
Update 11/7/2013: The lords of bacony goodness have chosen to shine upon us once again! Johnstown Food Center is back in business, and my buddy Frisbee says the bacon is just as spectacular as it had been when they shut their doors.
I find myself preposterously giddy at the chance to taste again bacon that I've been unable to replicate or find an equal to for years. Even if nobody even sees a deer in camp, this will be a season to remember for the momentous return of Gas Station Bacon!
Yes, that was two exclamation points in two paragraphs, Mark Twain be damned! It's that good!
!
The opportunities for roadside ambrosia are nearly limitless, but almost none of them can be found following nose-to-tail like a drone down the Interstate highway.
Update 11/7/2013: The lords of bacony goodness have chosen to shine upon us once again! Johnstown Food Center is back in business, and my buddy Frisbee says the bacon is just as spectacular as it had been when they shut their doors.
I find myself preposterously giddy at the chance to taste again bacon that I've been unable to replicate or find an equal to for years. Even if nobody even sees a deer in camp, this will be a season to remember for the momentous return of Gas Station Bacon!
Yes, that was two exclamation points in two paragraphs, Mark Twain be damned! It's that good!
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