I posted this on Instagram just a few days ago.
Stop with the Bacon
I’m so tired of bacon as shorthand for “I’m a sexy food hedonist.” I’m also tired of faux taxidermy and Zooey Deschanel.
It only seems right that one day later I was in a grocery store, standing at the deli counter asking where I can find the bacon.
My Mom had us over dinner for the 4th of July. I was missing my Dad, and wanted to be with him too. My choices on that are obviously narrow, and so I ended my recipe hiatus and found something simple to complement the dinner Mom was planning.
The green beans in bacon dressing recipe was perfect, because Dad would have been particularly entertained to watch me try to buy the bacon, try to cook the bacon. Both parts worked out, but I needed someone to tell me where in the grocery store I could find it and also how to cook it in the frying pan. You don’t need any fat to fry it, by the way. Amazing! It makes its own frying fat! I will grant that asparagus doesn’t do that.
I don’t know where this recipe came from. It’s on a little white index card in feminine hand. Maybe my Aunt? We’ll assume for the sake of my digestion that it wasn’t from my long-gone stepmother.
It was good. As I crumbled the bacon over the green beans I would see my Dad’s hands transposed over my own. I loved his broad, manicured nails.
He died just over two years ago.
I have his food and I will (try to) feed it to my kids and keep the transmission clear down through my family.
Green Beans with Warm Bacon Dressing
(2 servings)
1/2 lb green beans, trimmed, cut into 2″ lengths
2 bacon slices
1 Tbsp chopped shallot
2 tsp white wine vinegar
Cook beans in large pot of boiling water about 8 mins.
Fry bacon crisp, remove & crumble
Add shallots to skilled & saute about 30 secs. Remove from heat, cool slightly, add vinegar to shallot mixture
Season warm dressing to taste with salt and pepper
Pour dressing over beans & crumble bacon on top
jaysaint 
Posted by S.Susan on July 8, 2012 at 9:07 pm
I was porky when porky wasn’t cool.
Posted by Pamela Janel Boggess on July 8, 2012 at 9:45 pm
For future reference…Did you know you can bake bacon? Makes the cook time so much easier because you aren’t stuck babysitting it in the frying pan and it turns out the same.I learned this neat trick in the restaurant I worked in. Lay the bacon out on a baking sheet place in the oven for 20 -25 min on 325- 350. Easy peasy!
Posted by elaineevans on July 8, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Great recipe, thanks. Fatigue from bacon as a notion is one thing, and amen to it, but isn’t that the good thing about living in East Tennessee? That between the cultural delay and the best bacon on Earth, we in Knoxville and environs can look forward to perpetual awakening, or at least several sweet, smoky, long-lasting had-to-be-there dawns?
Posted by Leanne on July 8, 2012 at 11:06 pm
I love that you got bacon, Zooey Deschanel, and taxidermy into one sentence.