Now, you might be thinking, this girl dreams an awful lot about food, particularly meat. Well, it's true! What can I say? I'm a live to eat kind of girl, I'd rather go to a food festival than a concert (well, depends on who's playing, but that's another story), and I'm always reading up on the latest in food, how to cook it, and where it comes from. So it really shouldn't come as a surprise that, when I came across Baconfest (posted about on Serious Eats, if I recall), I decided that I had to go. I enlisted a fellow bacon-lover, and we embarked on our bacon-filled journey.
It all started on Saturday morning. We drove to Chicago from Ohio, so we had to wake up extra early in order to make it there for the 11AM shift. When we finally arrived at Baconfest, held at the Stan Mansion in Logan Square, we were greeted by a friendly Baconfest staff member, who asked us to please get in line and to smell the bacon cooking. Of course, we obliged, and waited patiently as we inched closer to our bacon-filled destiny.
Once inside the venue, we were given a menu and several drink tickets. We headed up to the second floor, where we encountered a bacon-filled bar. Drinks included bacon bloody marys (complete with a whole slice of bacon), bacon infused whisky, bacon chocolate martinis, and bacon infused vodka (vegan and all natural, who would've known?). We grabbed a drink and followed the smell of bacon over to the food room.
Here's what we found:
Bacon Fat Buckwheat Shortbread, House Pecan Wood-Smoked Bacon, Passionfruit and Apricot Conserves, and Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon Pralines
Canadian Bacon Gnocchi with Morel Mushrooms and Artichoke Sauce
Brochette de Moules a la Toulonnaise, A Prevencal-Style Brochette of Mussels, Bacon, and Spring Onion served with Oregano, Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Lemon
Bacon Blueberry Corncakes with Bourbon Brown Sugar Syrup and Sweet Cream
Bacon Waffle with Brown Sugar Bacon Ice Cream and garnished with Candied Dehydrated Bacon
BLT-style Pork Belly Sandwich with Honey-Ancho Glazed Bacon and a Lettuce, Avocado, and Piquillo Salsa
Triple Bacon Veal Meatballs and Asparagus with a Lemon Thyme Bacon Sugo
Neuske's Cherrywood Smoked Bacon-Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Ewe's Blue Cheese
Candied Bacon Tea Cookies and Vacuum Oven Pad Thai Bacon
Jaggery Cured Compart Duroc Bacon with Roasted Cashew Upma and Green Chili Upma, Mustard Greens and Pickled Bacon
Chicken-Fried Cherrywood Smoked Bacon with Cherry Ketchup and Homemade Pickle on a Miniature Brioche Bun
Bacon Corn Dogs with Bacon Maple Mustard
Downstairs, vendors were set up with all kinds of bacon products and paraphernalia, which included lots of chocolate covered bacon, baconnaise (sorry, but even I can't stomach that kind of bacon-ness), and bacon cupcakes.
My favorites by far were the chicken-fried bacon (uhhh, whaaat?? breaded, deep fried bacon??? heart attack??) and the Pad Thai bacon. Needless to say, we were stuffed after all of this bacon, and a bacon-induced coma soon followed. And you know what? I was so overloaded with bacon, to the point where I didn't really want to see or smell any bacon for a very long time. Of course, that lasted only about 5 hours.
Bacon, hopefully you will always be in my life, in all your delicious forms! To bacon!
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