The Week of Bacon

I shop at the Real Foods on Polk Street, which in addition to the common annoyance of all organic/natural grocery stores (no Coke, Cinnamon Toast Crunch or gelatin-based desserts) presents an enticing blend of mediocrity in selection and quality, surliness in service and prices just a tad shy of offensive. All the same it isn't Whole Foods or Safeway, which somehow makes it preferable.

Truth be told it's within walking distance, otherwise I wouldn't put up with it. Except for those rare occasions when their failings transcend and become beautiful accidents.

This past Tuesday, the special lady was at the Real Foods sourcing ingredients for the chop salad we decided on for dinner. She asked the wax-eared hippy at the meat counter for 1/8th lb of bacon. Being surly and thinking himself generally beyond rebuke, he served up .80 lbs, or about 650% more than we needed for the salad, thus ensuring that we would eat bacon for the rest of the week.

.80 lbs of bacon may not sound like much, but rest assured it's more than anyone should eat in a week. But I'm like the Indians and try not to let anything go to waste, so each time I hit the range to prepare dinner this week, things inevitably started with 4 pieces of bacon going into the frying pan. Then, whatever else I was cooking was sauted in the bacon pan drippings and garnished with bacon bits before being served.

Even my dog Woodstock got in on the action, taking bacon as a topping on his dogfood all week. Since we ran out Friday, he's fasted in protest of bacon restoration.