Mmmm, bacon.
The other day I was ranting to Joy about how, after living in India for two years, I felt that somehow my home country had turned into a cartoon. (Probably this one.) I think this every day after checking out the news online. The daily election headlines– usually featuring either a presidential candidate busy contradicting what he said just last week, or a vice-presidential candidate who should probably not be allowed to speak in front of recording equipment, ever–are just so weird. I want to email Reuters, AP, and CNN, asking: “Dude–is this a joke? Are you pranking us?”
Then there’s the whole economy going-to-a-hot-place-in-a-woven-wicker-product situation. The bailout plan sounds so much like that episode of House where everyone in the hospital decides to help keep House supplied with Vicodin, because he’s so much more functional on drugs than without. Without drugs, a misanthropic genius who happens to be good at saving lives turns into a gibbering, pain-crazed sociopath who will happily bust up every bone in his hand to take his mind off the pain in his leg. Each new bank failure, takeover and stock market drop seems to include yet another CEO getting handed a multi-million dollar check with his pink slip. Because, ya know, the alternative is having a gibbering, pain-crazed, financial analyst on your doorstep….
And then…there’s the bacon fetish fad. I mean, I grew up on a cuisine that featured all the salt-cured piggy goodness you could suck down. And yes, after a good long time without any real bacon to be had, I really miss the stuff. I even said so. But. Bacon-flavored vodka? Bacon flavored spray to add to your food? Bacon-topped sugar cookies? Bacon music?
WTF? I ranted to Joy for a good ten minutes about the bacon mania on teh Intarwebz. She sympathized with me quite a bit, a great show of emotion which turned out to involve a great deal of trying to keep a straight face.
Because, you see, Lena was on her way back from Dehra Dun that very day with a kilo of real bacon, already sliced up and ready for the pan. Joy knew this, and happily allowed me to make an ass out of myself with a rant about bacon on the Intarwebz. And both of them laughed a great deal to see me do a little happy dance when unpacking the bacon from the 10 kilos of newspaper, ice, and plastic that had been used to insulate it from the vagaries of Indian mountain roads.
Today I slapped a pan on the stove, fired up the trusty gas cylinder, and cooked bacon for the first time in about three years. Was it tasty? Yes. Was it greasy? Yes. Did it absolutely fill the niche of salt-cured pig meat I had been missing for so long?
Yes. Yes it did. I meant to take pictures of the crispy little bacon slices after cooking, but….um…I eated them.
