with an oink oink here and an oink oink there

...here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink oink...

So this weekend it was bacon.

I actually bought the bacon when I bought the chicken. Eight slices. Rendered from a pig that spent its life rolling around in mud somewhere outside Bennett, CO. No nitrates, hormones, etc. Said bacon sat in the fridge in its brown paper wrapper until yesterday, when I thought I should probably cook it up so it didn't go south. Into a pan the slices went. Bubble bubble, toil and trouble. S. was hankerin' for a BLT. We are drowning in tomatoes from our garden, and delicious ones at that. Sounded good, though I was leaning more toward a loose compote of sorts, one that included Texas super sweets caramelized with balsamic then tossed with eggplant. Hmmmm...too much Iron Chef!

S. had her BLT. When asked "so, what did you think?" she said "It was okay." Apparently she'd built this BLT up in her mind until she was damn near drooling, but when she ate it...pork nirvana was nowhere in sight. "You know what the best part was?" she said, somewhat surprised. "The tomato," I said. I had a feeling. "Yup," said S. "I would have been just as happy with a tomato avocado sandwich."

For my part, I poured off most of the bacon fat then put in my onions, wilted them, then added a 1/4 cup organic balsamic vinegar and turned the heat to low. Then I left them to their own devices. Once all liquid was evaporated, I took my diced eggplant (which I'd already peeled, salted and drained to cut down the bitterness) and mixed it all together. Cranking up the heat, I added some water and covered the pan so the eggplant would cook through. At the very end, I crumbled a slice of bacon into the mix.

If anything tastes more like fall than onions cooked in bacon fat, I don't know what it is. The flavor is unmistakable. I should have added diced apple, I thought later, something sweet to counteract the salt and vinegar. Next time. All in all, my little compotishness was delish.

The question remains: Will there be a next time? I'm not sure. Yeah, cooking bacon smells GOOD. But not so good that I was mourning its dissipation (a word?) as it slowly--and I mean slowly--drifted out our open windows. My clothes smelled like bacon. Ew. About an hour after eating, my stomach was churning. So was S.'s. "I don't think the bacon is sitting so well," she said. Of course, it may have been the cheese pizza and cake that we devoured earlier in the day at a one year old's birthday party. I had not eaten that much sugar (or those many carbs) in one sitting in A LONG TIME. We had to go to the grocery store after the party and both S. and I were half asleep on the way there. "Pizza and sugar," I sang. "We're comatose with pizza and sugar!" La la la la...

S. asked me yesterday "are you going to tell your parents that you're eating (mostly) vegetarian?"
"I don't know," I said. "I think I already mentioned it to my Mom."
"Your dad will FREAK out," she said. "He was the one who hated Kucinich because he was a vegetarian."
"Vegan," I corrected. "Or VAY-gan as my father likes to say."

If my Dad wants to do battle with me because I'm consciously avoiding meat, there's not much I can do. If the subject DOES come up, I could take the low road and say something mean to him like "Well, look at where meat eating got you!" or "I thought if I stopped eating meat now I could maybe avoid looking like you in 10 years," but that's SO not a can'o'worms I'm interested in opening. I'll probably just say something about eating more for health and energy ... I dare not get into the factory farming thing. I'm sure as hell not going to bring it up. Hopefully my mom will have the sense to keep it to herself too. One thing I know: I'm not going to apologize for this approach, and I'm not going to cook any differently. I'm going to keep on keepin' on, experimenting when I feel the need, but for the most part eschewing meat in exchange for veggies and fish and soy. My body is telling me it prefers the latter. And for once, I'm listening.