Bacon Dinner

Every once in a while an idea comes along so amazing that you wonder why no thought of it yet. Something so obvious, just sitting there waiting to be discovered, and fully exploited. When a friend asked if I would be interested in a dinner centered around bacon my answer was an immediate yes, of course. That was followed by the question, why haven't we done this already? Too gluttonous? Too unhealthy? Who cares, we both knew it had to be done so after a few weeks of tossing ideas around we finally made it happen. The goal was too involve bacon every step of the way, but not be overwhelmed and to be honest, we nailed it. It was a group effort with many contributors and even more people helping to eat everything. I tried to document as much as I could so enjoy......

A couple appetizers to get warmed up:

Goat cheese stuffed jalapenos wrapped in bacon

Deviled eggs, with bacon of course

Onto the main course, a prime rib wrapped in bacon(no, really). The original plan was for duck, but in a stroke of genius Taber decided to wrap yet another piece of meat in bacon that really has no need at all for extra fat and grease but will certainly still benefit from it. This ended up being a delicious combo, albeit very detrimental to everyone's health.




Twice baked potatoes with brie, chive, and bacon

Plated and ready to be devoured

Side salad: Spinach, apple, walnut, blue cheese, and yes, bacon

On to dessert, starting with chocolate stout cupcakes with bourbon chocolate frosting and maple bacon

Now that obviously isn't going to be enough dessert so lets throw in some candied maple bacon(amazing)......


then toss that on some maple ice cream and pair it with a nice barrel aged stout

After having some time to come out of the food coma, rehydrate, and reflect, I'm very happy with how everything came together. We ate a lot of bacon, but worked it into each course quite well. There was never a point that any of us were overwhelmed with bacon. Success.

Maine Beer Company: Revisited

I finally got a chance to spend some time at Maine Beer Company again recently. The new brew house is in, and churning out a higher quantity than ever of Maine Beer's usual hits, as well as some experimental/one-off stuff. With MBC now available in Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont there is still plenty of Peeper and Zoe on the shelves in Maine thanks to the increased capacity. Mean Old Tom was a very welcome and much anticipated stout and the perfect way to finish out another brutal Maine winter. Their latest offering, an IPA named "Lunch" will be hitting shelves very soon.

I was lucky enough to be at the brewery on a day when Dan was brewing a special batch of beer with Alan, the man who taught him how to brew. This brew may or not be bottled, and may or not spend some time in a barrel. ;) I've already posted about Maine Beer Company's humble beginnings so it was great to get back into the brewery and shoot some pics of the new setup....








The rest of my pics from the brew day as well as the original 1bbl setup can be found here