Why a Patty Melt Is Superior To a Burger

Height
I get no pleasure out of trying to take a bite out of a “big-mouth” burger. I already have temporomandibular joint disorder in my jaw (TMJ). Stretching my mouth open for the sake of eating never feels good for me. The other way to compensate for this issue is to press the burger down, turning the bun into a compressed, flattened version of itself lost in condiments and grease.

The patty melt is a different story. It’s delightfully constrcuted to about the height of a grilled cheese sandwich. There’s no extra effort that needs to be put into eating this sandwich.

The Bread
Most hamburgers are set up with a soft bun. If it’s toasted, usually it’s only on the inside of the bun. This means that your teeth go through a soft piece of bread, maybe hit the crunch on the other side of the bun, and maybe get a slice of lettuce for texture before hitting the patty.

Patty melt on the other hand gives you a satisfying crunch before you hit anything else. Some burger patties have a little crunch with a sear, but optimally cooked, a sear it doesn’t add that much texture. 

The delightful crunch of the bread on a patty melt creates a wonderful contrast to the meat inside and helps maintain the structure of the sandwich to the very last bite. This is not the case for the burger. By the last bite, the bun has been bitten into and flattened with finger indentations to the point of barely providing any structure for the sandwich.

Have you ever taken a bite out a burger and felt like you were getting more bread than you wanted? Not an issue with a patty melt.

Condiment
Ketchup is an overused condiment in our food culture. While it totally hits the spots with fries, and  hot dogs (don’t you dare start with the "no ketchup and hot dog" thing! This ridiculous Chicago eating custom is ridiculous), ketchup doesn't enhance a beef patty. Ketchup when added to a beef patty makes a beef patty taste like…ketchup. Thousand Island on the other hand, adds a layer of richness and a little tanginess without masking the flavor, creating an almost umami flavor with the beef. Add some fried onions to that, and you really got something going on.

Toppings
Lettuce has no place near a beef patty. Are we hoping that one piece of lettuce is somehow going to make this meal more balanced and healthy? Okay, you are adding a crunch, maybe a splash of freshness. Well, if you really wanted a crunch, the patty melt has that covered with the bread, and that little pop of water you get when you bite through lettuce in a burger, does that really add to the beef? Let’s be honest it’s more a distraction than anything else. Also, the positive properties of the lettuce are lost in a the grease of the beef patty itself. A patty melt has no distraction of a “fresh” vegetable. A sandwich focusing on a beef patty shouldn’t have a “hot side,” and a “cold side.” Only a two hot sides in perfect harmony, otherwise known as a patty melt.

Parenthood: 238 - Green Bean Casserole, A Lesson From My Father

My dad would have hated what I had for lunch today.

I took part of a leftover baguette, cut it lengthwise and toasted it. I spread some left over Alfredo sauce on the bread (ala cream cheese on a bagel), and put some sliced up Italian sausage inside and to complete the sandwich.  It was delicious.

My dad loves a good baguette, and he’s ok with sausage, but the Alfredo sauce, not so much.

My dad loves great food. He’s a very open and adventurous eater, and much of my interest in food comes from him. Many of my favorite memories with my dad include food. There’s sitting across from him at Herb Garden, among a sea of wine glasses experiencing what can only be described as a ridiculous culinary adventure. Grabbing a bowl of Vietnamese Pho with my dad on a Saturday in Seattle’s Rainer Valley neighborhood was always a fun outing. I remember sitting next to my dad as a young kid, while he was watching television trying to enjoy his steak after a long day at work.  He would eventually relent and feed me bites of his New York Strip, which was his choice cut at the time. Oh, I can’t forget that time when he cooked bananas foster, and almost set the kitchen on fire, and there’s sitting with him at my maternal grandmother’s favorite sushi bar for dinner the day of her funeral.

While my dad can appreciate the craft and art in creamier and richer foods, he doesn’t has much of a taste for it.  I totally respect my dad’s view on foods that lean on heavy cream as an essential ingredient. This viewpoint is not out of ignorance, and it’s better for his health anyways that he doesn’t eat as much of these kinds of foods. My dad is simply not the kind of guy who orders mac ‘n cheese, nachos, or would enjoy Green Bean Casserole.

The first time I ever ate Green Bean Casserole is one of those food memories that has never left me. My freshmen year, a group of people from marching band invited me to road trip to see a football game. I’m not sure what game we were heading to, or even the game at all but I do remember the dinner we had at one of my marching band’s friend's house that we stayed for the night.

It was a very dark, and very cold night and as we sat down for dinner, I was hungry and looking forward to something nurturing. A bowl of cottage cheese came out and people spooned it on the plate, which completely mystified me. Then a big casserole dish came out with some roasted chicken, which smelled incredible. And then came the Green Bean Casserole. There was an audible “aww,” of wonder when it came to the table, and some people even applauded.

I looked this dish, with small pieces of green beans in a white sauce covered by some kind of crunchy topping, I could not identify. Oh, cream of mushrooms soup and friend onions? Right. My family ate green beans, but they were stir-fried with garlic. Of course as with every dish, I took a spoonful onto my plate. While I was truly touched by the hospitality of my friend’s family, besides the chicken, I barely could eat any of the other food.

It took some time but after couple years of living in the Midwest, I grew to enjoy and love Midwestern food culture. Each time I saw Green Bean Casserole, I tried it again, and every time I did, I liked it a little bit more, and it got to the point that I was one of those people applauding when I saw it. The green beans mix perfectly with the mushroom flavor in the sauce and the fried onions, (in a very Chinese way), complement the texture of the beans and add a great pop of onion flavor.

My mother-in-law was hosting Christmas eve dinner and I volunteered to cook some kind of vegetable dish. I considered doing roasted Brussels sprout, or possibly a ratatouille, but then it hit, I’m going to do a Green Bean Casserole, from scratch. I looked through a bunch of different recipes and landed on this one by Laura Vitale:



I liked the idea of a firmer “al dente,” beans, the bacon adding depth to the flavor, and a real mushroom presence. I made the dish for Christmas Eve dinner (though I didn’t fry the onions myself), and it was a success. It tasted rich, but also fresh, and people enjoyed eating it.

About a week later when I was home, I was talking to my mom, as I often do, about cooking. I told her about the Green Bean Casserole, and she seemed interested. I offered to make it for dinner, and she agreed that would be nice. We hit the Asian grocery store (there were having an incredible sale on fresh uni), managed to find the fried onions as well as the other ingredients.

When we got home, my dad as usual took some time to do prep for the evening meal. Ethan watched my dad as he prepared the green beans. My dad told me that when he was a kid, he would watch his grandmother snap green beans in half.  He smiled at Ethan and Ethan smiled back somehow understanding the meaning of the moment.   

I explained to my dad that I was planning to cook a creamy casserole dish that he probably wouldn’t like. My dad laughed and said that’s fine, and that he had plenty of other things to eat. I left my dad with Ethan as he continued to prep. A little while later my dad found me in the living room with a cut up mushroom and asked me if it was small enough for the casserole. I said it was perfect and my dad went to the kitchen and finished cutting them up.

It was fun showing my mom how to make the casserole and she encouraged me to put more friend onions on top, and attempted to keep me from eating them before putting them on the casserole.

We had a great dinner with my parents, Diana, our kids, my brother and sister-in-law and their two daughters. It was the first time ten of us had shared a meal together and it was really special. The casserole turned out pretty well (it was a little under-seasoned). It didn’t seem like my dad tried it, which was fine with me. My mom liked it and thanked me for making it.

The next afternoon my mom mentioned that the Green Bean Casserole made good leftovers and she had eaten some of it for lunch. She said that everyone liked it. My dad chimed in, and said, “I had some for lunch it, and it was good, I liked how the mushrooms and green beans mixed.” I was surprised, and immediately felt proud and appreciated. After a couple minutes, I realized I shouldn’t be surprised.  This was my dad.

In high school when I got really into musicals, my dad tried listening to musicals to understand my interest. And now there are times that he actually listens to musicals more than I do now. My dad took me to classical music concerts, he wasn’t initially interested in. I don’t know how much he understood the music that I wrote in college, but I know he listened to it and took pride in my work. I periodically send him CDs, books, and DVDs and he probably doesn’t like dome of what I send him but I know that he tries every one of the things I share with him.

Even though my dad knew that I was going to cook something he probably wouldn’t like, he spent the time and energy to carefully prep the green beans and cut the mushrooms.  He knew it was not a type of food he would enjoy, he gave it a try and found something in it to like.

I think about my dad, raising two sons in a country he emigrated to as an adult, who don’t speak his native language, and who are adapting parts of American culture, that often doesn’t make sense. It could not have been easy for my dad to sit at the dinner table and hear me and my brother talk about thing he didn’t understand like comics books. He never forced the dinner conversation to what he wanted to talk about, he never disapproved of our interests. Instead of tryIng to mold us into people he could naturally relate to, my father let us find ourselves and looked at what he didn’t understand about us as an opportunity to enrich himself.

In this way he is the most uncommon of dads.

The paradigm of fatherhood that many adapt is about passing down traditions, and teaching younger generations to love the things that their fathers do. Because of this, some children feel pressured to follow their father’s passions in an attempt to feel approval and pride from their fathers, in an attempt to feel love. These children learn that in order to gain their fathers love, they must become a mirror instead of an individual.

My dad taught me a different lesson. He worked to get to know me, and he worked to gain my love and approval. This brought the same efforts out of me through feelings of gratitude and love. It he was willing to make the effort, so would I.

So I will try to love my sons as my father loves me.  I will find things to like in books that Ollie enjoys, and whatever Ethan is into that I’m not, I will do my best to understand. Even if I don’t get it, I will still do all I can to support my boys' passions.  Fatherhood and love is often doing for others what you don’t understood or don’t like, because it means something to someone else. 

My dad has taught me this in the big things like embracing Diana as family without hesitation, and supporting my career as a teacher, also also in the small things like cutting green beans and mushrooms and eating my casserole.

Chinese New Year & Fat Tuesday

Frat Boy: Saga Dining Hall - Part 2

When we walked into the east side, the workers always warmly greeted us. They would swipe our student IDs which also kept our meal plan accounts. We would walk through a doorway and enter the line of food displayed exactly how you would expect in a cafeteria. First there were the plates. You always grabbed at least two plates, sometimes three. There’s nothing worse than being halfway down the line and needing to ask someone to hand you another plate. The first thing on the line was always the main dish, which sometimes was awesome (chicken parmesan, chicken nuggets) often mediocre (hamburgers, grilled chicken breast) and at times disgusting (unidentifiable mystery meat mixed in with some grey-ish yellow sauce).

Inevitably some worker would be checking the temperatures of the food. I guess it’s great that the food was safe, but that doesn’t really help the fact that it sometimes tasted like paste. Then there would someone who would walk around and carefully drop pimetos on the vegetable. Chrissie always ranted about this, “maybe they could focus on making the food better as opposed to dressing up a turd.”

In addition to the main course there were standbys that they always prepped because we inevitably would skip the main course the vast majority of the time. These included: grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta with marinara sauce, cheese quesadillas, pizzas, French fries and the salad bar.

Drinks were watered down sodas and Minute-Maid juice selections. There was a soft-serve machine, pretty fresh coffee and usually a decent selection of cookies and brownies.

Most of the time I loaded one plate with a cheeses quesadillas, fries and hardboiled egg from the salad bar and the other plate with a grilled cheeses sandwich and marinara sauce. I’d grab a couple cookies and grab a glass of cranberry juice. I’d place the egg and fries in the quesadilla and roll it up and dip my grilled cheese in the marinara sauce.

I literally ate this for a meal, hundreds of times. Yes, it was kind of gross, but it was how I figured out how to make this eating situation work for me. My friends all had their own ways to cope with the mediocrity of the food. Some people used a lot of hot sauce, others focused on the salad bar and used tons of dressing while other simply drank a lot of coffee.

Sharing food is one of the most important ways that human beings bond with each other. What I learned at the Plex is that the quality of the food doesn’t necessarily negatively affect the fellowship of a meal.

We laughed about trying to eat some of the worst meats, being disgusted at overcooked hard-boiled eggs, wilted lettuce and rock hard cookies. We celebrated steak night, gorged on chicken nuggets and made mad dashes for the cookie tray whenever a fresh batch came out of the oven. It wasn’t about what we ate, it was the fact that we ate together as family that made the Plex so special.

Cultural Weirdness in Taipei

To the left of the toilet in our hotel bathroom was this panel.  My favorite button was "oscillating."  I actually didn't use any of the buttons except for the ones across the top.  It was all just so intimidating.   

Mom, two kids, and cups of hot soup, all on one scooter.  I know Americans can sometimes go a little overboard with safety things, but really Taipei? 

That's a normal size tea cup and a normal sized fork.  Those little glasses are Chinese shot glasses.  They were about the size of thimble.  When I use them I felt like a giant.  It was awesome. 

Taiwan Travelogue: Dreams Of Sushi

Last weekend my family went to my late grandmother's favorite sushi restaurant.  This was one of the greatest meals I've ever had in my life.  The sushi chefs prepared one piece at time with incredible artistry. 

The Gift Of Cooking: A Mother's Day Reflection

A couple weeks ago I was feeling overwhelmed by life. I was hungry and tired and as I sat there thinking about what I wanted to eat. I looked inside my refrigerator saw some leftover chicken, carrots and celery and went into action.

I put some water on the stove to boil and then chopped up some vegetables. I threw the veggies into the pan with some chicken stock, and cooked the vegetables while the broth reduced. I put some noodles imported from Taiwan into the pot once the water boiled. As soon as the noodles were done, the broth had reduced into a gravy with the veggies. I put in the chicken meat, black bean sauce, Chinese BBQ sauce, some sesame oil and some chili paste in to the gravy. Then I threw the noodles into pot, tossed it all around and after 10 minutes of cooking, I had dinner.

Yes, there was the practicality of having food to eat which was great but there was something deeper about the meal that I had prepared. The flavors, the textures, and the even the warmth coming up from the noodles touched my soul in a personal and meaningful way. It was like I was able to create for myself a reminder of the who I was, the people I came from in my life and the center deep within myself that I needed to take on the challenges in my life.

After finishing that bowl of noodles I had one thought, “thanks mom.”

It’s not so much that my mom taught me how to cook but that she taught me to have a relationship with food. It’s not just about the science of cooking, it's about understanding and appreciating the art and magic that happens when flavors come together. She taught me that loving food was not gorging on food, that great food doesn’t necessarily cost $50 a plate and that cooking was something to be enjoyed.

When I was a kid, my favorite place to go was the grocery store. It was a magical place full of possibilities. Some of it was the simple pleasure of ice cream but more it was watching my mom move through the store, carefully and deliberately taking things into her cart like a painter putting colors on her palette.

Cooking for my mom is never a chore. I've never heard her complain about cooking. Yes, there are some days, especially when the weather is hot when she doesn’t feel like cooking but those are rare. My mom taught me that cooking is something we do for ourselves and that it’s a way express care to the people around us. One of life’s joys is preparing a meal for people you love and watching them share in the fellowship of a meal. Breaking bread bonds people like nothing else and being the person who made it happen is truly a beautiful feeling.

I’m an Asian-American and I’m still not sure what that really means. What I do know is that cooking is one of the strongest connections I have to not only my Asian background but also my American heritage. When you prepare a dish you are reflecting all of the people who contributed to the creation of that recipe through thousands of years. You are connecting to multiple cultures and through that one simple action and you define where you came from and where you are going. I feel grateful that my mom passed on the skills to do that and to share that connection with the people in my life.

It’s often said that the people in your life that you love are always with you no matter how far away you are from them. I know that’s true, because every time I’m cooking I feel like my mom is right there with me even though she’s across the country.

Thanks mom.

My Love Of McDonald's

Last week as I entered my classroom one of the my fellow teachers, flustered and distraught asked me if I saw the sign? Confused and concerned I responded that I hadn't. “Well Kingsley, our McDonald's is going to close on the 21st, UNTIL JULY!!!” she exclaimed. Panicked, I raced to the computer and after 3 minutes of intense Internet surfing I found an alternative location that we could go to and printed out a map.

Problem solved. . . wow that was a close one.

Near the school I work at there is a McDonald's less than half a mile away. They are closing temporarily to remodel the building. Many staff members get their morning drinks from there and occasionally hit it up for lunch. While some people I work with go there every morning, I hit it up once a week.

To celebrate making it through another week and not losing our patience with any of our students Lajaunda (a co-worker who I carpool with) and I hit up McDonald’s every Friday morning.

This is a conversation from the first time we did this earlier in the year (Me-K, Lajuanda-L).

[standing in line at McDonalds]
L-What are you getting?
K-hmm. . the McSkillet Burrito

L-Ew! Are you serious? That thing is disgusting?!?
K-uh yeah, it's great, it's got cheese and a great sauce and. . . .
L-STOP!! That's just gross, whatever
K-right . . . ok, so what are you getting?
L-McGriddle
K-Oh My God! A breakfast sandwich with sweetened bread!!! Might as well be eating a Bacon-McDonut

Honestly, going to McDonald’s is one of the highlights of my week. If that sounds pathetic to you, let me explain.

At it's worst McDonald's while creating an assembly approach to food production created mindless minimum wage jobs that through repetitive unskilled tasks diminished the spirit of its workers. Some argue that McDonald's also contributes to obesity issues in the United States and some even have gone so far that the sugar and salt laden foods purposely have addictive qualities.

Now I've seen Supersize Me, Food Inc. and read Fast Food Nation. While I understand the arguments that McDonald's has had negative effects on our society, I can’t deny what a glorious eating experience McDonald’s can be.



Some would call me a “foody.” I’m not a huge fan of that would because of its snobby connotation. I think spending over a hundred dollars on a dinner can be a great value and that eating great food can be a beautiful and emotional artistic experience. I love going to the grocery store, trying different foods, reading about food, watching cooking shows on television and cooking. Spending four or five hours preparing a meal is something that brings me joy.

Loving food the way I do, I also love street food. The same way I understand the artistry in a pop song like “Party In The USA” by Miley Cyrus, I revel in a good hot dog, fried chicken, and simple but artfully created burger.

When you go to McDonald’s, like listening to a great pop song, you get exactly what you expect. It’s democratic in the way that someone can’t pay more and get a better Big Mac than I can, it’s the same across the country and economic levels. McDonald’s treats all their customers the same and in this way it’s a prevalent and lively shared cultural experience.

I know that McDonald’s food is not great for me, but neither is find dining either. What are you going to do though? Are you willing to sacrifice enjoying food so that you can live a couple years longer? If you are, Godspeed, but I’d rather shave a couple years off my live and love what I eat.

Last year, I started going to McDonald’s on Friday and it was fun, but it’s different with Lajuanda. We look forward to it through the week, celebrate it when it comes and share a couple minutes before the students come and enjoy our breakfast together. There’s always this moment when we are eating and we look at each other with this sense of contentment and smile. Now that I think about it, it's not really about the food, is it?

That’s what my love of food is really about. Loving what you eat is not gorging on a pint of ice cream or eating at the same restaurant every day. It’s about experience the food we eat. It’s using food as a gateway into other cultures and the people in our world. It’s sharing with others what the joy and the experiences that make life worth living.

The Joy Of Cooking Vegan?!?

Menu

Starters
Edamame Hummus with Toasted Nan Bread
Seared Tofu & Shitake Mushroom “sandwiches” with a Teriyaki Sauce & Black Bean Glaze

Entrees
Roasted Tomato and Bell Pepper soup with Filoni bread topped with roasted pine nut and garlic “butter”

We had one of Diana’s cousins and her husband over for dinner the other night. They are both vegan. These means that they do not eat any kind of meat but they also don't eat any dairy products including milk, cheese and butter.

When Diana asked last week, if we could have them over for dinner it seemed like a great opportunity to catch up with them and take on the challenge of cooking a vegan meal. I didn’t think about it a couple days and then I started trying to conceptualize what we could make for them.

Let’s, what kind of meat-less dishes do I make. Stir-fry vegetables, well no, I use chicken broth for that. I could do a curry, well there’s the broth again as well as that dollop of sour cream at the end that really pulls everything together. Salads, I could make a salad with lettuce and napa cabbage, with some garbanzo beans, topped with bacon and uh. . . hard boiled egg. Pasta, that’s easy, just roast some red pepper flacks, add some garlic and shallots, then toss in some nice penne and top with um. . . cheese. Well, I can do a tomato soup, without the milk which will go great with some garlic bread, that I CAN'T MAKE because it uses butter . . . SIGH.

Ok so I’m hitting a lot of road blocks.

I like to think of myself as an opened minded cook. Growing up at home cooking with my mom in the kitchen I learned how to cook mostly Asian orientated dishes, which is why it wasn’t until last month that I cooked a burger for the first time ever (it was great, we mixed in some shitake mushrooms and sweet onions). I can’t think of anything that I cook that is vegan, even when I’m eating celery sticks I dip them in Ranch dressing. So why am I bothering try to hard to figure out a vegan dinner? Well, like many things in my life, it goes back to my parents.

My sister-in-law is vegetarian and she has some vegan friends and when my mom has cooked for them and they have said that it’s the best vegan food they have ever eaten. I’m not competitive with my mom. I don’t have any no need to outdo her but whenever I’ve faced challenges in my life one of the things that keeps me going to knowing that my parents has faced similar ones and come out successful. When I was lonely in college my freshmen year across the country from friends and family I think of how my mom and dad came to America from Taiwan. If they could get through moving to a different country than I could survive college, and if my mom can cook vegan, well so can I.

After talking to my mom, wife and sister-in-law and doing some research I came up with a menu. The idea for the starters I got from my mom. The edamame hummus, is just ground edamame beans, some vegetable stock and instead of Tahini (ground sesame seed pasted used in hummus) I used sesame seed oil. The tofu dish is an argument that tofu can be full of flavor and have a pleasing texture. I stir-fried some chopped shitake mushroms with some olive oil, and finished it with some soy sauce. I put that aside while I made 2 inch by 1 inch squares out of tofu and got the moisture out of the tofu by pressing the pieces between two plates (this helps the tofu brown easier).

With two pieces of tofu like sandwich bread and the shitake as the filling, I seared one side of the of the sandwich in a pan with some canola oil until the tofu had a nice crispy crust, flipped the sandwich over, basted the top of it with a mixture of Teriyaki Sauce, black bean and garlic paste and hot sauce and stuck the pan in the oven to finish.

Roasted tomato soup is a recipe Diana got online. Basically instead of cooking tomatoes in the pot to reduce to get flavor, you roughly chop tomatoes and a bell better, top with olive oil and let the vegetables roast in the oven. While you do this, cook down some onions, sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in a pot. After about 40 minutes of roasting and the onions have caramelized, throw everything in a blender and you got soup.

The Filoni bread topped with pine nuts and roasted garlic “butter” was not so successful. I wanted to do make something like garlic bread so I roasted some pine nuts ground them and mixed them with olive oil and garlic and then put it on bread and toasted it. It tasted kind of like pesto but looked kind of baby spit-up.

Even with the Filoni bread, the meal was a success and our vegan guest really enjoyed the meal. I put a lot of time into making this meal. I went to three different grocery stores (one twice because I forgot my wallet the first time) and probably spent about 3 or 4 hours cooking. Diana didn’t ask me to and in no ways did Diana’s cousin and her husband make me feel obligated to make that kind of effort. This was all my choice.

Sharing a meal with friends and family is an intimate and powerful experience. It feels amazing when you are the one that provides the food that is central to the experience that can make any ordinary night, special.

So mom, I did it. It was one of the more challenging meals I’ve put together and it turned our great. I know that I don’t need to prove that I’m you son, but it’s always nice when the little successes in life confirm that fact.

Chicken Fried Bacon (no it's not a song, it's food)

I know that this blog is all about music, its meaning and BLAH blah blah, blah, BLAH blah blah. However a couple days ago I ate chicken fried bacon, and I have got to share.

Here's the deal, a couple months ago I came across this clip on youtube.com about this restaurant in Texas that sells country fried bacon. The owner's logic is, "A lot them [Americans] chose to eat bacon strips, so what can you do? Y'know, what IS good for you? It's your own body that can tell what's good for you."

C'mon people it's 2009, I do hope when people hear my mom's joke about bacon grease lubricating the arteries so blood can move faster that they know it's a joke.

I e-mailed the clip to some of my friends, we made some jokes and in the back of my mind I figured that maybe one of these days I would actually try deep fried bacon.

I love food. I love everything about food. When I was younger, I cooked with my mom all of the time and would watching cooking shows with her. Between my wife and I, I do most of the cooking not by obligation but by choice, because I love cooking. I think of food as art. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a tasting menu at a place like Charlie Trotters (which I ate at once, which honestly was one most transcendent artistic experiences in my life) and other times, like my need to watch an action film, I grab a hot dog at the best hot dog place in Chicago Poochie's (char-dog with everything but relish).

There's a hot dog place by the grocery store that my wife and I go to called Wiener and Still Champion and a couple weeks ago I decided to try one of their hot dogs. It was ok, but not the best I've had (I've been to very a dozen different hot dog places in the Chicago area). As I paid I noticed hanging above the register a sign advertising chicken fried bacon.

So at my birthday party last week, I was talking to one of my friends Sara and she was mourning the fact that she hadn't gotten a chance to try chicken fried bacon on her last trip to Texas. I enthusiastically chimed in that I had found a place in Evasnton (where we live) that did in fact sell this dish and we enthusiastically set up an outing to go eat some deep friend bacon.

On a cold and rainy Tuesday afternoon, we drove to Wiener and Still Champion.

Sara and I were the only customer in the restaurant which made sense seeing how it was around 4 pm but it was still a little unnerving. We got an order of chicken fried bacon and a corn dog. After a couple minutes later our order was ready and here was the bacon.

The bacon came with two dipping sauces, a hot sauce and what we thought was tater sauce which was later reveled by the owner as a "garlic aioli" (aioli is a rich sauce of crushed garlic, egg yolks, lemon juice, and olive oil). The batter was peppery and crispy and went well with both sauces. The bacon itself were large thick strips.

There was one major problem, the bacon itself was cooked, but soggy, not crispy or slightly chewy which is my preference. This problem lies in the concept of this dish. The reason why many people agree that the best way to cook chicken is to fry it is because the batter seals in the meat and basically steams the meat at a high temperature in it own juices locking in the flavor. The meat inside a expertly cooked piece of fried chicken truly is amazing. Frying chicken solves the problem of other preparation of chicken (especially involving chicken breast meat) which leave the meat dry and tasteless.

Does anyone really want to seal in the juices of bacon?

When we cook bacon what we are doing is drawing out the fat and grease to concentrate the flavor of the meat in turn changing the rubbery texture of the meat to a more appealing firmness. Frying bacon does the same thing to the meat that frying chicken does, leaving the meat itself juicy and soft. While that sounds great for chicken the idea of a soft and juicy piece of bacon is pretty revolting.

Sara and I ate most of order of bacon and I ate the corn dog, which was probably the best corn dog I've ever had (if you're into corn dogs you've got to check this place out). We didn't feel gross, but we didn't feel great either. The conclusion was that sharing an order was a good idea because eating a whole order by oneself is probably a feeling close to death.

I can now say that I've eaten chicken fried bacon. Do I regret it? No. Will I ever eat chicken friend bacon ever again? No. Is this something that you need to try? Not really.

In reaction to the health food craze, some people do things like deep fry bacon which is a fundamentally flawed dish. If you love a dish for its flavor and texture, I say enjoy it, embrace it, even if it is on the fatty side. But eating food that is conceptually flawed for the sake of being unhealthy is just silly. That's not loving food. That is making a mockery of the art of cuisine.

Now it's time for me to go exercise and even though I'll eventually burn off the calories from my adventure, I don't think I can ever burn away the memory of crispy, greasy, rubbery and chewy experience that is chicken friend bacon.