A friend gave me bacon mints for my birthday. While expected just a bacon flavored candy, I was surprised to find so much more. There's actually some mint in there - smoky, salty mint. Thanks, Will!

I don't know why friends started sending me their bacon links. At some point people started associating me with bacon and now I can't shake it. I'm their bacon guy. Somehow, in the same vein, my mother is the giraffe lady. As a school teacher, and known as the giraffe lady, my mother would consistently get 6-10 giraffes per holiday season and 6-10 giraffes at the end of the year. Giraffe plates, pins, statues, paintings, socks, clocks, etc, etc, etc. It hasn't gotten that bad for me yet. But I'm going to have to consider putting an end to it before it becomes serious.

Last year on Christmas, my father-in-law gave me a subscription to the Bacon of the Month Club. He didn't think 1 pound per month was enough, though, so he upgraded us to 2 pounds. Over the summer, with 6 pounds of bacon in the freezer, we called and asked them to hold our subscription until October and go month to month after that.

Here's how bacon is made, which isn't as gross as how hot dogs are made, but still eye opening.

Sarah Palin caused an uproar a couple days ago by conducting an interview in front of a farmer slaughtering turkeys. I didn't follow much of it, but my main reaction to it was more on the side of "Really? That was the best place for an interview" aas opposed to "those poor turkeys". Though it lead me to this article by Patrick Martins, director of Slow Food USA. (Speaking of Slow Food...)

When you sit down to your Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, waiting for the main attraction to be brought in on a platter, take a moment to think about where it came from and how it found its way to your table.

So where's my turkey coming from? I wasn't sure my mom would know, but she did. Plainville Farms. I looked through the website and didn't find much of anything except they have a ton of USDA labels about how they treat their animals. So I feel a little better that at least I know. So where's your turkey from?

I had meant to post Michael Pollan's latest (now 5 weeks old) NY Times effort -
An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief - and this is as good a post to do it in. We're in full food round up mode now, folks. It was neat how Pollan responded to readers' comments in a different section, that's a good move on the NY Times' part.

And here's an interview with Pollan from The American Conservative where he talks about the idea of food security being something the Right and the Left can work together on. Interesting parts:

You see it in other traditions, too: the Mayans also had grain reserves. Now the amount of grain we have worldwide is a six- or eight-day supply. If there were a major shock to the system, people would go hungry quickly. It was one of the reforms of the Nixon administration to get rid of the grain reserve under enormous pressure from agribusiness and big grain traders who wanted more control over the market and wanted to be able to speculate on grain prices.

and

“Arugula,” we should remember, is a marketing term invented by somebody who thought that this very common green, known by farmers all over the Midwest for many years as “rocket,” needed to be tuned up and given new appeal. It’s a complete marketing creation, and it’s completely ruined a very healthy green—at least from a political point of view.

Here's the NY Times late to the chocolate covered bacon (bacolate) party we covered last year here and here.

Shopsin's from April 2002:

What does happen occasionally is that Kenny gets an idea for a dish and writes on the specials board— yes, there is a specials board—something like Indomalekian Sunrise Stew. (Kenny and his oldest son, Charlie, invented the country of Indomalekia along with its culinary traditions.) A couple of weeks later, someone finally orders Indomalekian Sunrise Stew and Kenny can’t remember what he had in mind when he thought it up. Fortunately, the customer doesn’t know, either, so Kenny just invents it again on the spot.

Here's a 2004 article from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, on Bush's USDA. There's too much in here to quote, so just read the whole thing.

And of course I would be remiss for not posting the interview that started the post off. An, no, THE epic definition of political blindness, unless of course the GOP base rallies around stuff like this.

Via Erika, not only does this tuxedo look like bacon, it smells like bacon, too. It says dry clean only, but, uh, doesn't that get rid of the bacon smell?

Baconnaise, from the makers of bacon salt, of course.

Gummy Bacon, but its strawberry flavored, which sounds gross.

The title says everything and I want to try this.

This site makes me envious, sad, angry, and hungry, kind of all at once. Who has time and energy enough in the morning not only to think of a different delicious-looking breakfast every day, but to also compose a beautiful photo of it? Most mornings for me involve either a hasty bowl of cereal or a granola bar on my way out the door. What I wouldn't give to be able to make what appears to be an omelet with sundried tomatoes and mozzarella in the morning! Or an egg and bacon sandwich on real bread!

Does anyone have any advice on how to turn oneself from a night person into a morning person?

For all you folks preparing for some sort of disaster, don't forget your bacon in a can. It lasts for 10 years. Apparently it's been around for a long time, and actually, I'm intrigued by this. Do you think it's crispy or rubbery?

xkcd says it all about a lot of things, now it's saying it all about bacon.