Maybe Scotiabank is right

Hey, maybe I am richer than I think.

The hot news on today's wires is that Shaw Communications is buying three television stations from CTV - for a buck apiece. Heck, at that rate I could buy... let me just rummage in my pocket here... hey, an entire nationwide network!

Maybe I should keep an eye out for interesting offerings on eBay or Craigslist. "Older terrestrial-broadcast television network for sale. Analog only - no digital. Selling as-is, where-is. No returns or refunds. We accept PayPal! No bids from Nigeria or Italy please."

Words to live by

... and a great band name, too:

CBC 70% off! A little gallows humour...

I was heading in to the CBC's Toronto Broadcasting Centre on Front Street yesterday when I saw this sign outside. It's not often I do a double-take, but I did.

Hopefully you've all been following the goings-on at Canada's public broadcaster. If you haven't, well, surf here and get caught up. I'll wait for you...

Bacon experiment number 3: Nirvana

PREFACE: Note to all concerned about my health: this is my last bacon adventure. I promise (for now, anyway).

Some time ago I heard about a restaurant in Texas that was serving chicken-fried bacon with cream gravy as an appetizer. What's not to love about that?

I'm not fussed about the gravy part, although I understand it's a key component of traditional chicken-fried steak. For the unitiated, "chicken-fried" means that the food is dredged in a simple flour/milk/egg batter and then fried in oil like fried chicken. No real chickens are involved.

When I started reading and hearing more about chicken-fried bacon, I immediately wondered what the texture and the taste would be like. Soooooo, off to the kitchen.

I won't trouble you with a grand photo sequence on my preparation of this truly heart-stopping dish. I battered the bacon (just saying that makes my mouth water) and deep-fried it in peanut oil, a few strips at a time, in my trusty cast-iron pan. If I had a real deep-fat fryer I would have used that.
As it turned out, the biggest challenge was keeping the oil at a consistent temperature. Everything else was almost ridiculously easy.

And the taste. Wow. I've had deep-fried bacon plenty of times before, as have many of you who have eaten in restaurants; it's an efficient and quick way of cooking larger quantities of bacon. The difference here is the coating; it gives a little extra crunch, and if it's properly seasoned with black pepper, cayenne and such, it gives the bacon a little extra depth. Surprisingly - at least to me, anyway - the frying didn't intensify the traditional smoke and salt flavours of the bacon. What was intensified, of course, was the fat content. As with the Bacon Explosion or its Canadian relative the Bacon Eh-xplosion (see below), a little of this stuff goes a long way. I just tried a couple of strips without any sauce of any kind; if I had used any kind of gravy, I think my arteries would have seized up just on principle.

There. I've done it. I'm not convinced I'll ever do it again, although I have to admit I'm a little curious about how other types of coating (specifically beer batter and tempura batter) might work. Maybe I'll start blogging about other stuff again now.

Return of the Son of Bacon Explosion II: The Revenge

Nearly exactly a month ago I did a post about the Bacon Explosion. Ever since I made it I've been thinking of possible variations to make it better, or at least different. Behold my latest invention: the Bacon Eh-xplosion.

Probably the toughest part of the original Bacon Explosion was the "woven" exterior. It struck me that the dish would be more attractive if the bacon slices were more regular and rectilinear; it would also make it easier to weave. I also mused that the whole thing would have more structural integrity if the outside of the Explosion were a single piece. It was then that I thought about using back bacon or so-called "Canadian" bacon.

So I bought a single piece, along with a few chorizo sausages for the filling. First I thought about using the denser, less-marbled back bacon to create regular and consistent slices for the outside of the dish, but then decided to just use the shape of the piece itself. So after rinsing off most of the cornmeal coating (I know it's usually called peameal bacon in Ontario, but they've actually been using cornmeal for years) I "filleted" the pork back with a sharp knife.
It got a dusting of cajun spice rub, as well as some chili powder.

I re-seasoned the chorizo much like the Italian sausage I used the first time, using dried basil, ground roasted garlic and cajun spice. I also put in a slurp of chipotle barbecue sauce as well as a bit of maple syrup (!), to cut the heat a bit and add another flavour note. In the meantime, I cooked up about a quarter of the bacon I cut out of the pork back:
Once it was fully cooked, I cut it into small pieces and added it to the sausage meat, then formed it into a chub and wrapped it in the outer layer.
Once formed, it got a coat of Blue Smoke barbecue sauce and another hit of spice rub before going into the oven. I cut a few slits into the outer layer to help drain off the fat during cooking.

The final result was, once again, tasty! This version is a bit leaner because of the lower fat content of the back bacon vs. streaky bacon. I probably should have used a bit of kitchen twine to truss this up - it would have made the final product a little prettier - but overall I'm very happy with the way it turned out.
Maybe I should start coming up with a few dishes that don't involve nearly-pure cholesterol...

I don't know if it's art, but I know what I like

Wow, once again it's been a ridiculously long time since my last post. I'll spare you my feelings on all the political crap that's occurred since then - and yikes, there was a lot of it - and move straight into the topic of this evening's post: food! Specifically, a Super-Bowl-worthy, artery-clogging, spectacular orgy of pork fat.

For the past few days the Internet has been abuzz over a little something called the Bacon Explosion. It's kind of a catchy name, but I'm not sure it does justice to a dish that is so glorious in its excess. As near as anyone can tell, a couple of hardcore barbecue aficionados in Kansas City came up with this particular recipe, although in and of itself there's nothing all that original about it. Anyway, I saw a few pics online and decided to try my hand. Here's a little photo documentary of the process.

The raw materials are simple: about a kilo each of thick-cut bacon and mild Italian sausage. I got mine at the St. Lawrence Market.
Then I created a lattice of bacon strips, that will serve as a sort of casing for the porky goodness within. I added a good dose of Cajun spice rub.
The next step was to cook the remaining bacon. First I fried four strips in a non-stick pan to render out the fat. Then I cooked the rest in the microwave, finishing them off in the pan. The end result was some seriously crisp, flavourful and gorgeous bacon.
After re-seasoning the sausage meat with more creole spice, dried basil, cayenne pepper and ground roasted garlic, I spread it out on a silicone sheet and placed the bacon on top.
The silicone baking sheet was a real help in helping roll and form this into a loaf. I then brushed it with chipotle barbecue sauce before placing it on top of the "sheet" of woven bacon.
After a little bit of finagling I was able to get the bacon rolled around the sausage, and it got one more coat of BBQ sauce before going onto a roasting rack in a 225-degree oven.
It took about three hours to get the internal temperature of this behemoth up to the recommended 165 degrees (and I generally go a few degrees higher for safety's sake). The final result looked pretty good.
The final result was tasty and incredibly rich, as you might expect with all those spices and fat. A little goes a long way. I think I'll probably end up freezing some of it for a treat later on in the year.
The perfect Super Bowl treat: a slice or two of this bad boy in a kaiser bun with a slice of cheese and some good mustard. Yum.

Hey, the Food Network it ain't, but it was a fun way to kill a little time on a lazy afternoon.

Election time in Canada, when the idiots are in bloom

It's been quite a while since my last blog post. My apologies. There, now that's out of the way.

What a time it is to be in North America! Seemingly on the verge of a monumental economic Armageddon, with two – count 'em, two – elections on the horizon. It's almost too bad that the vast majority of us can only vote in one of the two, since nearly everyone I know has been following both campaigns with a greater or lesser degree of assiduity. That said, although it's true that when the US sneezes Canada reaches for a tissue, the reverse is seldom the case.

With only a few hours to go before Election Day here in Canada, here are my musings. First, my grades for the federal party leaders.

• Harper: D-minus. For someone who was supposedly all about raising the level of discourse in Ottawa and increasing transparency, he's done a remarkable job of doing exactly the opposite. By keeping the entire PMO, Cabinet and Conservative caucus on an incredibly short leash, Harper has shown himself to be a control freak of biblical proportion. That sort of so-called leadership ill behooves a democracy. Harper has committed the unforgivable sin (in politics, anyway) of pretending to be the smartest guy in the room. Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn't, but he doesn't seem to realize that no one likes the smartest guy in the room.
• Dion: A solid C. There's no question that Dion knows his stuff. He's always well-prepared and, during the campaign at least, hasn't backed away from the fray. He needs to be better than he is, though. If he were to find a way to create a deeper intellectual or emotional connection with voters he'd do very well. Not this time around, I fear.
• Layton: B. Maybe it's my leftie upbringing, but I really like Jack. In a lot of ways Jack is nearly the perfect Canadian politician. He pales, though, in comparison with some of his great political forebears like Ed Broadbent, David Lewis or the great Tommy Douglas.
• Duceppe: B-minus. Paradoxically, the most experienced federal leader in this election. He knows what he wants, he's perfectly capable of spelling it out, and he's smart (and honest) enough to state that if you're not in a position to vote for him, he doesn't care whether or not you agree with him. You have to respect that.
• May: C-plus. She's capable, and can improve her mark in future campaigns.

Now, for the party campaigns and platforms:

• Conservatives: It's been called a Seinfeld campaign, i.e. a campaign about nothing. The Conservative platform was supposedly unveiled last week – one week before the vote – and I still don't have much of an idea of what they really plan on doing. The entire campaign has been built around Harper and his, ahem, leadership. It kinda has to be, since his candidates have shown a distinct inability to run on their own accomplishments. This is the product of the control-freak mentality; when your boss won't let you have or express any ideas of your own, you end up not having much ammunition. The Conservatives spent most of the first couple of weeks of the campaign committing gaffe after gaffe. By and large these incredible cock-ups were the product of arrogant candidates and campaign managers who didn't realize that they really had no idea what they were doing. If I could anthropomorphize the Conservative campaign, it would be Flounder from “Animal House”. To quote Dean Wormer: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
• Liberals: *sigh* The Libs missed the boat on this campaign. The Conservatives goaded the Liberals into thinking that this election was about choosing who was the better leader. If the Libs had concentrated on the issues and – more importantly - their team, I think they could have done much better. To prove it, a quick quiz: who would be the top three Tories to step up if something were to happen to Harper? I'd be willing to bet that it would take you a minute or two to come up with the third, and maybe even with a second, name. Harper has had his caucus on such a tight rein for so long that it's hard to even identify the shining lights. With the Liberals, on the other hand, one at least knows that there is more than one brain in the caucus. I think the Liberals may well do better than projected in the polls, but I'm far from convinced that the Natural Governing Party will return to the top of the heap. As a fictional character, the Liberal campaign is Charlie Brown. People begrudgingly like him, even the people who don't, but he still gets no respect.
• New Democrats: It's well documented that Jack Layton's strategy this time around has been to present himself as the Best Alternative to Steve and the Conservatives. And if it were possible to vote for an individual as Prime Minister without regard to the party he/she represents, then Jack would probably do very well indeed. And the party's TV commercials near the end of the campaign have been excellent, although I'm not sure it's a good thing when the cartoon version of you looks better than you do. Full marks, though, for moving to the left and staying there. Who best incarnates the NDP campaign? Pig-Pen: smart, charming in an offbeat sort of way, but no one's gonna ask you on a date.
• Greens: This one is easy. The Greens are the Ugly Betty of Canadian politics, with Elizabeth herself playing the title role. With apologies to Rick Mercer, one could also say that the Greens are the broccoli of Canadian politics (Rick said the same thing about the CBC being Canada's broccoli). You know it's good for you. You really want to like it, but you just can't bring yourself to do it.

I would dearly love to do a similar deconstruction of the US campaign, but it might be wiser to do that in a separate rant. Congratulations to those of you who made it through this one.

And one more thing: my brother Neil is suffering, er, celebrating a significant birthday today. All the best!