This is my favorite kind of bacon!!! I grabbed it from my fridge just to show you!

Raw bacon makes me sick, I like it as crispy as possible without tasting burned. As Jim Gaffigan calls it: meat candy.

Chocolate covered bacon strips from Lillie Belle Chocolates :)

A condition experienced during sleep characterized by significant discomfort, sweating, and delusional dreams that is triggered by the consumption of large amounts of cured or smoked meats. Condition is related to the high levels of nitrates and salts in the cured meat.

Via the urban dictionary…

Ok, what the HELL is Polytetrafluoroethylene? Well, I guess I believe polytetra-cancer-shit has been popularized by people who never really knew how to cook. It’s a substance that has found its way into our daily lives, and better known as ‘non-stick’ or Teflon and marketed by DuPont as a life-saving technology in the early fifties.

In 1954, French engineer Marc Grégoire created the first pan coated with Teflon. A ‘revolutionary’ non-stick resin under the brand name of Tefal emerged after Grégoires’ wife urged him to try the material he had been using on fishing tackle on her cooking pans. All I can say is, Mrs.Grégoire must have been a shitty cook. If she understood the chemistry of cast iron, she would know that a properly seasoned cast iron skillet is as non-stick as it gets.

Not only did this substance Teflon find its way onto our cookware, it also was useful in the famed Manhattan Project. You know, the a-bomb? It was used to coat the pipes in the reactor, to prevent over-heating of the coolant. Cool! Like, literally, COOL! Well, but is it safe for human consumption? I’m not so sure about that, and remain skeptical that its benefits are without side effects. I’m here to help you understand what your grandma understood so well…the cast iron skillet.

What most people don’t know is that a properly prepared, heated and seasoned cast iron skillet is a perfectly functional non-stick pan. Anyone who has found companionship in a trusty old cast iron skillet would know. Not to mention the old skillets are vastly cheaper, more durable and functional than any crappy, over-priced, piece of shit, hecho-in-China non-stick counterpart. Not to mention they keep your dinner hot when you go back for seconds.

How many non-stick pans have you cycled through in your lifetime? How many cast iron skillets? My guess would be that you’ve thrown more money at the non-stick type. The only reason a cast iron skillet would go bad is if your house was hit my an asteroid and melted your house – they last forever… generations. Case-in-point: my mother is cooking with a 70+ cast iron skillet, and cast iron dutch oven of the same vintage. Not only are non-stick pans often of substandard quality and often overpriced, I believe they are a health risk.

How many of you out there have owned a non-stick pan that lost its space-age, wonderful ‘non-stick’ qualities after a couple uses? Pose this question; Where did all that space-age non-stick Teflon go? The answer is easy. The polytetra-cancer-shit ended up in your omelet, grilled cheese sandwich, and into you! Embedded in your internal ecosystem like a plastic bag in a landfill, the stuff doesn’t want to leave the cozy confines of your body. It’ll just sit there until one day, it decides it wants to break down…hopefully NOT into something harmful.

So, which would you rather have? Poly-tetra-cancer-shit? Or Iron; a completely usable nutrient for your body. If you are still mesmerized by your friends who would never part with their favorite cast iron pan, find out why! There’s a reason – you’ll save money, and might just save your body. The biggest hurdle for most is making the transition from non-stick to cast iron is the special use and care involved in maintaining a pan. The most important steps to remember are: 1. Adequately heat the pan before you start to cook, get it HOT. 2. Add a little, tiny, scant drop or two of oil to the pan before you begin to cook. 3. Now you’re cooking with iron! For a more visual take on this process, here are some cool videos I found on how to properly prepare, use and maintain a cast iron skillet:

How to season a new cast iron skillet (plus, it shows an awesome example of a well-seasoned pan):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVyggld2_U&feature=related

A fine, classic example of the superiority of cast iron - aka  - How to cook an egg in a cast iron skillet - YouTube Video.

Saturday morning breakfast. Too big for da britches!

Food Porn = Bacon in a cast iron skillet.