A few Mondays back I wrapped up something that once felt like it was going to go on into perpetuity. I finished writing a book. Finished writing it for the third of eighth freaking time, that is.  Tough to say exactly how many drafts it’s been through – the beast was actually born back in the mid-90’s, transcribed on a PC a little later on then dicked around with it a little at the turn of the century before finally cleaning it up into something possibly publishable a couple of years ago.  Then an agent took interest, suggested it get cut back a hundred or so pages and while I was just about finished with that task my hard drive broke. Since I’d been of the negligent mindset that that sort of crap never happened it cost me two fucking thousand dollars to have a lab extract my book so I could finish it.  I musta done a good job, because I got a pat on the back and the dandy advice to chop it into two books.  And make the second half the first book and the first part a prequel and it was such an intriguing notion that I actually spent the last four months working on it. 

    It got done!  As I was shutting down the computer that night it occurred to me that it might wake up dead again in the morning. There wasn’t any obvious cause for worry, the drive was less than a year old after all. But even though the manuscripts had been printed, backed up on CD’s and an external drive, mailed and emailed, it seemed wise to hedge off catastrophe a little more by emailing yet another copy to my Gmail account.

   I must be a magic fairy of death because when I woke up my laptop didn’t.  How do you like that? I thought of it and it happened.  Well now, no big deal.  I could use a day off from the machine to undertake some household projects that had been delayed by all the writing. I could reconnect with my kids, see if Jack was dating anybody new at pre-school and have him remind me what his sister’s name was. My books were alive on somebody else’s desk and it was a bright and sunny morning.  It was early February but the thermometer was cruising towards 60. Then the doorbell rang and Mail Carrier Steve was standing on my stoop, “Dude! It looks like somebody sent you bacon in the mail! All things considered it was looking to be a heck of swell day. I’d have to wait a while before blogging about the bacon, but the stuff went straight from my front door into the oven. 

Finally, at the beginning of March, here’s February’s BOTM!!! No drum rolls, however. And grab your hankies people, because you’re not going to want to hear this: 

Gatton Farms, Dan Phillips Special Brown Sugar Hickory Smoked Country Bacon
Tasting Notes (in the package): “This is my own, secret, private cure. Only Charlie Gatton and I know the recipe. I set out to custom design the perfect bacon and I think this is it. It has an incredible balance between sweet, hammy pork flavors and salty, savory flavors. The flavors are intense and the meat is succulent. A bold new bacon that stands up and says ‘Eat me!’”

State of Origin: Kentucky 

Size: 16 oz. 

   I gotta catch a plane to Captiva this morning so I’ll make this quick -  this bacon sucked.  I didn’t know such a thing was possible, but it is.  I’ve had mediocre bacon and I’ve even been lightly disappointed over a lower quality bacon sticking to the pan.  But this stuff achieved the unthinkable – it was bad.  All the things this Dan Phillips idiot imagined about this meat were diametrically opposed to what actually occurs when you get the crap in your mouth.  There were some further allusions in the package literature about his curing technique There is no balance whatsoever – this nitrate abomination is over smoked, over salted and just nasty all over, right up to the iodine undertone which manages to creep across your tongue during the noxious taste assault. The morons in charge of the cure either used iodized table salt, tossed a rotting haddock in with the brine or used bad pigs.  This is what I might make at home if I was taking my first crack at curing, smoking and cooking anything in general.  When I suggested that notion to Elisa, who was trying to rasp the lingering skank off her tongue with a dry towel,  she concurred: “You’re right it does taste like yours…”  That was a little uncalled for, I’ve never made bacon, but my first attempt at smoked salmon had been similar – reeeeaaaalllly salty and it tasted like a chimney.  Dan Phillip’s tragic slab was even worse than that – and he’s selling it to people. Even my bacon junkie boy, Jack, grimaced and winced as though a pig had just punched him in the face, “Daddy, can we buy good bacon next time?”

   So who is this Dan Phillips who has blindly desecrated the Church of Bacon while trumpeting the glories of his insipid meat?  Turns out he’s the guy who created the Grateful Palate which operates The Bacon of the Month Club.  And a jackass, apparently.  And he’s got a little trouble with the truth to boot – the “16 oz.” pack of bacon was only 12.  Which leads me to doubt wheter or not it actually comes from a Kentucky farm or if it was made in an autobody shop in Rhode Island.

   Son of a bitch… Well, January started near the ceiling but at least I’m pretty sure where the fucking basement lies in the spectrum of bacon. There simply no way the next 10 months could taste as awful as February…