Anybody else have a 6 pound slab of bacon in their fridge?

      Could there be anything more delicious than bacon?  Growing up we didn't eat much of it save for holidays.  My mom is also a dietitian and I'm sure figured that all the nitrates and nitrites saturating a piece of meat that really counts as a fat isn't something you promote as a "healthy breakfast option."  Instead, we grew up eating high fiber cereal or oatmeal for breakfast (or gourmet homemade flax seed muffins, fresh squeezed juices, fruit salad and egg white omelets whenever the TV station showed up to film).  In high school I moved on to eating "The Mix" alongside my parents and in college I worked at a donut shop (which is in no one's definition considered a "healthy" breakfast but still didn't sell anything with bacon.)  

       So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that when I met Reid, bacon still wasn't a staple in my fridge.  After a couple months of dating, and many meals he had eaten at my house, he asked/stated:  "So, I guess you don't eat bacon?"  I was shocked at such a preposterous statement and replied adamantly, "Of course I eat bacon.  I love bacon. Who doesn't love bacon?"  "Oh," he said, "I just have never seen you buy any."  

Reid and I after a few weeks of dating.  I still have that totally enamored, trusting look on my face.  "Sure, let's go ride motorcycles.  That's the smartest thing I've ever heard." 

        That was all the green light I needed to go out and buy a big package of bacon.  Not being educated on the finer points of pork (yet), I chose some center cut bacon which claimed to have 30% less fat than normal bacon.  (Also at this time I had no idea what part of the pig bacon came from except that it was probably closest the delicious bone.)   

        Slowly but surely I've moved from buying the cheapest bacon to packaged reduced fat bacon pieces to center cut bacon to only buying nitrite and nitrate free bacon to organic, nitrite and nitrate free bacon. Now I've got my hands on pastured pork bacon.  When I first heard about pastured pork, I thought the meat had gone through some kind of pasteurization process like milk.  Actually it means the pigs get to go out in the pasture (alongside the cows in this case) and graze if they want to.  Yep, they eat grass like their bovine neighbors or are free to root around on the property for acorns and such.  Some breeds can only eat grass with a little whey or slop supplemented. This translates into bacon that ain't that bad, as long as it is processed in an acceptable manner too (as in you don't go add all those nitrates/nitrites ("pink salt") or go soak it in trans fat shortening).

       Anyway, a couple months or so ago I found out Tink's Grass Fed Beef also had Grass Fed Pork (or pastured pork).  Since my relationship with sausage is similar to that of bacon, I got excited that a "forbidden food" could actually be okay for you and tried out the sausage.  (So incredible, you don't even need to put mustard on it if you don't want).  So a couple weeks ago I asked Carissa, Tink's daughter, if they had any bacon.   (I didn't know when I asked that "bacon" was a finished product, not the cut of meat.)  "No, she posted, "but we have some pork belly to make bacon with.  Just let us know if you're interested in making it."  My stream of consciousness immediately went something like this:

      Was I interested in making homemade bacon?  Had one of my deepest fantasies actually come true?  Of course I wanted to make homemade bacon.  After I got tired of eating it three meals a day and for snacks, I would use it to win friends and influence people by feeding them homemade bacon.  Company would love to come over because the smell of homemade bacon would make our home on par with the Robert Toombs House instead of our current bachelor house love nest.  Then I would open a food joint where all we sold were grits, eggs and homemade bacon.  The tourism industry would skyrocket because we would exclusively sell Washington's finest homemade bacon from Wilkes County's finest pastured pork. People would put in orders years in advance for their Washington bacon like they do for ham.  Deer hunters would swear that the only way to season venison is by adding a few slabs of Washington bacon on it.  It would open the floodgates to commerce. I can't believe I'm getting to make homemade bacon.  Homemade bacon is probably the most fantastic product in the world. I love bacon.

Robert Toombs House-Washington, GA

Our House-Washington, Ga

     So at the market Saturday I asked Carissa about the bacon.  "Here it is.  It takes a couple weeks to cure then you probably need to smoke it. Let us know what works."  I  have never cured meat besides letting some freshly cut vacuum sealed beef sit in the fridge for a week (which I was told meant "curing" it) before cooking it.  And now I have a slab of future bacon weighing in at 5.83 pounds sitting in our fridge.  I'm going to take the Wade's advice they got from an old rancher (as Tink said, "When old men talk, listen closely.") and salt the meat for 7-12 days, keep it in the fridge to cure, then figure out a way to smoke it.

5.83 pounds of pastured pork belly..aka BACON!!

       I'm thinking of cutting the slab in half and doing one side ground pepper and kosher salt then taking the other side and doing a sweet salty cure with some of the Carrol's local honey. (Which I've got to go stock up on for granola anyway).  The possibilities are endless and I've got at least a week to find someone with an outdoor wood smoker for the first batch of Washington bacon...