The things a girl will do for bacon

Some girls search for that perfect man, some the perfect shoes. Me I searched long and hard for the perfect bacon. This maybe why I’m single and incidentally why I also have very few pairs of shoes.

The perfect bacon in my eyes had to be flavorful but not to salty, preferably smoked and had to be able to be cooked almost to the point of incineration without tasting like salty carbon wafers. My Dad often talked about the bacon of his youth, just the right flavour, cured exactly how bacon should be, but he grew up in the north of England during the depression and into World War 2 so some how I think he does that just to torment me.
The Irish rave about their bacon, they don’t tell you why its supposed to be worth raving about of course just that its grand “oh tis grand to be sure” they say. I used to live there once; I didn’t think it was so great, maybe they gave me the crap tourist bacon “Paddy, the Australian want some bacon” “Ah give her the other stuff Michael to be sure” Nothing like bad bacon to fuel racial stereotypes now is there.
After I came back to Australia I moved out to Preston, bit of a let down you might assume but it has a fantastic market and the shopping strip on high street has these little Asian bazaars full of ingredients I’d never seen before but would take home each week to try to use in something, you should try it I found a lot of really cool stuff that way.
When next you go shopping take home one ingredient you’ve never used before, taste it raw (unless that might kill you) then cook it in a couple of different ways and you might surprise yourself. Also those little shops are great places to pick up cheap utensils.
What I loved most about the market itself though was the Deli’s, this collection of Italian, greek and polish places. Shops that sold pasta, olives, verjuice, all kinds of dips and tapenades, coffee, wine and spirits, nuts in every size and description and holy of all holies a polish deli that sells the grail of all bacons. It’s double smoked its moist and sticky but never wet or slimy; it’s the perfect ratio of fat to meat so as not to remind you that too much might give you a heart attack.

Fantastic you think, mission accomplished, wrong. The people who work there are horrible to me. You know I’ve kinda struggled knowing that I’m going to be writing this post about bacon, I didn’t want to mean or unfair but sod that these people are horrible. I’m there nearly every week for the bacon fine I might only be bringing them in $10 bucks or so but they work in a deli its not like at the casino, there’s no high rollers counter for the people who spend $100, the deli counter should be a place of egalitarianism in an otherwise harsh and cruel world.
When I first started going there I took their surly grunts and lack of service with poise and good humor, they had my bacon after all, but it all came to a head one day when I had gone to the market on a Friday night to get groceries in preparation for a weekend of cooking for friends. It was late and admittedly I was tired but I had already been to see my lovely chicken butcher and as it has done for the last 8 years my exchanges with them were nothing short of a pleasure. I get up to the counter and I wait, clearly in view of every counter lady there but no one comes. They chat to the couple next to me in Polish, all three of them, maybe there is a high rollers counter and I just never get to use it, I mean it would seem to be the only logical conclusion for there to have to be three people making what I can only assume to be small talk leaving me standing there. After what seemed like an age a man comes back from behind a curtain at the back of the shop and gestures to me “Vhat you vant” I gallantly ignore his tone and move on “ Could I please have half a kilo of the double smoked bacon sliced thickly please?” Note the use of manners and specific instructions. “Vhat?” He says, calmly I repeat myself a little louder but not so as to seem annoyed “ Could I please have half a kilo of the double smoked bacon sliced thickly please?”. Just then one of the three Deli Ladies from Macbeth breaks away from their coven and looks over to me. The man grunts something at her and walks away. “Vhat you vant?” I detected a sneer, I’m not being paranoid it was definitely a sneer now I’m pissed off no one sneers at me not when I’m giving them money, not in front of the bacon. I cut out the please “Half a kilo of double smoked bacon sliced thickly”. She walks off and comes back with an unsliced hunk of bacon and starts to wrap it up. “No, sliced thickly” I interrupt. She sighs as if slicing the friggin bacon is the greatest inconvenience in her life thus far and from the look of her she lived through a war.
She takes her sweet time slicing the bacon, nearly throws it at me and demands the money. That’s it I think bacon or no I am so never going back there again. I go home angry and rant to the eater of the bacon about how I hate the Deli women and I’m never going back there. And then I cook with the bacon and I think damnit they have me over a barrel. So now every week just so I can get the perfect bacon I have to run the gauntlet of the polish deli women like a cave dwelling hunter gatherer fleeing a hungry saber toothed tiger or three. I’ve considered learning polish but I fear mispronunciation would only make them angrier. It’s bloody harsh bringing home the bacon.

Farfalle with Bacon, Green peas and pecorino.

Get a nice big pot to boil your water in, make sure its salted but don’t bother putting any olive oil in it does absolutely nothing. Once the water has come to the boil and you’ve put your pasta in, get your frying pan on high with some olive oil and peel and chop up an onion roughly red, white or brown it makes no difference, into the pan with it, then if you managed to get your bacon sliced chop it into batons again it doesn’t matter what size they are just do it to your taste. Let the onions and bacon cook through and get all nice and golden and peel a clove of garlic or if you hate peeling garlic minced garlic from the jar will do, its not great but no ones looking, The reason you don’t put the garlic in til the end is because if you had put it in at the start it would be burnt and horrible and bitter by this point garlic doesn’t need a hell of a lot of cooking add a little of the pasta water and a touch of balsamic to the pan and deglaze anything that has caramelized on the bottom then season to taste. Throw your peas in with the pasta when the pasta is about a minute away from done, if you can get your hands on fresh peas can you also get me some, I only ever seem to be able to find the frozen ones which is not a tragedy really because the fresh ones take longer to cook. Drain your pasta and peas and then throw them into the pan with the bacon and onion and toss everything through evenly grate through some pecorino and your done.