Wednesday was the day. The day I had been building up to all of my life, all of the preparations were in place, all of the hard work complete, my patience at last rewarded, it was time to enjoy the fruits of my labors.
As some of you know, I live with my wife on a small ‘hobby’ farm in SE Wisconsin. I have been an avid gardener for years, last year we raised a couple of pigs on pasture behind the barn. I saved one package of bacon in the freezer from last year’s pig for just this moment.
I calibrated the toaster with a few 'test slices" so that the toast would be the perfect tawny amber, a hearty crunch, but with a little ‘give’ to the center of the bread.
I walked up to the garden and selected a beautifully ripe Brandywine tomato, an heirloom variety with deep burgundy flesh, and nearly large enough for a single slice to cover the sandwich. It seemed heavy for it’s size, an indication that it was at the peak of it’s flavor. A small head of Buttercrunch lettuce, bright green against the faded gold of the straw mulch, joined the tomato on our trip back to the kitchen.
The bacon was laid cold into a cast iron skillet, and carefully monitored while cooking to perfection. It’s double-smoked aroma filled the kitchen.
It was time. I assembled the ingredients, gave the sandwich a quick slice on the diagonal and dove in.
Utter bliss permeated every cell of my body as I savored this sandwich, the most incredible combination of flavors known to man, and knew that each of it’s principal ingredients came from within 300 yards of where I sat.
Holy great googly moogly that sounds good! I’m heading off to the store for some peppered bacon (although it won’t be as good as your home grown) to go with the heirloom tomato I got at the farmers market last night.
You’re so right. Our tomatoes are coming in beautifully, and we have bacon made locally. I’ve been making BLTs with “Texas toast” bread, which is thick enough to hold in the bacon and tomato juices.
Now I need to find a bacon-tomato quiche recipe that I made years ago. Adding cheese to something that’s already perfect wouldn’t be wrong, would it?
Adding cheese is perfectly acceptable, I have been known to add a thin slice of extra-sharp cheddar to a BLT now and then. I just thought that for my first “All-farm” BLT it should be the classic standard.
Choosing which type of tomato to use was the hardest part. I’ve got a large variety to pick from. I almost went with a Yellow Jubilee because they are the best tasting ones in the garden, but a yellow tomato on a BLT just looks wrong to me
I didn’t mention the accompaniments to the sandwich in the OP, but those were from my farm too. Freshly picked sweet corn and a jar of last year’s pickled beets. It was a great moment.
I didn’t get my Bacon Salt in the mail until Thursday, unfortunately.
Actually, the Bacon Council of North America paid me to write this post so that more people would buy bacon. That Bacon Salt thread has them worried…sshhhhh!
Yummmmmm. I had a BLT for lunch because of this thread, but none of the ingredients was anywhere near as fresh. Although the tomato came from the farmers’ market this morning.
I didn’t include it in the OP because I figured someone would ask why I didn’t walk down to the coop and gather fresh eggs and hand-whip them with olive oil I cold-pressed from my own trees to make fresh mayonnaise.
To paraphrase the late great Carl Sagan. “Every do it yourself project ultimately starts with Step One: Create the universe”
I don’t buy store tomatoes for anything. Around here, they’re not just inferior, they’re totally tasteless. Pretty, though.
We have not enough tomatoes to can but too many to use, so I’ve been making juice and freezing it in small batches. I’ll use it for chili, for Sundays and football.
I haven’t bought a tomato at the supermarket in 10 years, there is no point to it. Even the supposedly “vine-ripened” tomatoes are crap.
I firmly believe that anyone who tells you that they “don’t like tomatoes” has never had an actual real-life tomato. If the only tomatoes I had ever had were from a grocery store I would hate them too.
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