BLT Day

The story of my day today actually starts on Wednesday. I sat at my desk Wednesday morning, and tore off Tuesday's page on the "Bacon Love" calendar. It revealed the following new and interesting information:

"National BLT month? Is this for real?" was my thought. I checked a couple of places on the net and found confirmation. I posted the following to Facebook, and started thinking about a BLT.

I spoke to Liz about it in the car on the way home, she gave me an idea, and it was decided. While Liz went out today, I would make it BLT day.

So this morning we woke up, Liz got ready and left, and I pondered what was ahead of me. Mmm... the BLT. I wasn't ready to start making food yet, so I turned on the TV and sat on the couch. Avatar The Last Airbender was on, "Hehe - good start to the morning" I thought. Then things got better. I stood up to go get a drink, and as I walked back into the living room I saw it. It sat across our driveway in all it's beauty and resplendent glory.

I had to take a picture, because words can't describe how awesome USPS trucks are. All the omens were pointing to the day being a good one, so I finished the Avatar episode and got to preparations. The first thing I was going to need was bread. No point in making a sandwich without something to sandwich the fillings between. So, I got to work on the bread first. I took a two bowl approach, wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another.

I mixed them together, threw them in the bread machine and pressed the start button. OK, 3 hours and 15 minutes and I'll have a loaf of bread. The laptop has been acting up lately, so I grabbed it and started the work to back it up and reinstall Windows. I wanted some background noise while I was doing it though, so I turned the TV back on. What's this? Spike is running the original Star Wars trilogy all day? And Empire recently started? The good things kept adding up, so I sat there reciting the dialogue and kicking off the Windows install. Fast forward 3 hours, and Empire had become Jedi, and the beep from the kitchen signaled that we have a loaf of bread!

I let it cool for an hour or so, then sliced it and got to work on the rest of the BLT. I'm not eating bread sandwiches here!

There's a glamour shot of the bread half sliced. Time to work on the B: it's bacon time! I took out the bacon, a new pack, and decided that my earlier decision of 4 strips should do it. I laid them out in the cast iron, snapping a photo before putting the bacon press on them and cooking them up.

While the bacon was cooking I got to work on the L. Lettuce is boring, so I'm not going to go into detail on how I washed it and, well, that's all. Time to make sure that the T is coming along. Here's the twist in the BLT tale. I don't like tomato. Sure, I'll eat it in chili, or pasta sauce, or ketchup, or well, you get the idea, I'll eat tomato when it is in something. But the thought of a slice of tomato sitting on a sandwich, contaminating it and soaking the bread with its wetness disgusts me. That's where Liz' suggestion from the other day came back. We'd been talking about other T foods. So I added one of those:

TACO! That's right: this BLT is a Bacon, Lettuce and Taco Sandwich. Time to start assembly!

The taco went first, I wanted the BLT in order from the top. Then I threw on the lettuce. Bacon should be done by now!

Oh yeah, look at that! Time to add the B to the LT.

and let's take a lower, more cross section-like view:

I had toasted the bread, so I didn't want it to be too dry. Normally mayo would go on a BLT, but regular mayo just wasn't going to cut it. So I took a page from the book of Erin: I subbed the mayo for chipotle bbq mayo.

Now all that is left to do for this BLT is to put that top slice where it belongs. I threw some roughly cut sweet potato fries on the side and food's done!

But I wasn't quite done yet: you can't have a meal this good without some liquid deliciousness to accompany it. Cream Soda will do the trick!

And there you have it. The culmination of BLT Day. But how did it taste? Really good. The taco wasn't as overpowering as I thought it would be, the hint of chipotle bbq mayo helped add a little to it, and you could taste the bacon throughout.

Now the dishes are done, the laptop's been fixed and I'm sitting, reminiscing about the wonders of BLT Day. A pleasing thought just occurred to me: the weekend isn't over, and there's still bacon in the fridge...