For Christmas, I gave Vanessa the gift of six months of Zingermans* Bacon of the Month Club. We enjoyed the last shipment this morning for brunch. It was Benton’s Tennessee Hickory Smoked Country Bacon, from Madisonville, Tennessee.
*Zingermans is a fancy, awesome deli and gourmet food store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for those not in the know. At one point, the NY Times named it best deli in the country.
The bacon is cured with salt, brown sugar and pepper, and is very thick and meaty (how I like it, although Vanessa is less a fan). I’d have to say that this was my least favorite bacon of the six from Zingermans, because it was extremely salty and very smoky flavored. I like salt and I like smokiness in my bacon, but too much of a good thing is too much.
Even so, the bacon was enjoyable and we had a tasty brunch. This was also my first time cooking eggs for Vanessa, after two years of dating and many eggs made by her for me. Yes, I’m not much of a cook.
For the record, I think my favorite of all of the Zingermans bacon selections was what is basically Zingermans’ house bacon, found at this link.