Death of a Bacon Heiress (4 page)

After an exciting few days in the Big Apple, I think I'm finally coming back to earth and reality.

My e-mail in-box has been flooded with requests for the recipe that I prepared on the show, so today I would love to share it with you.

I've been kid free lately, so I invited my brother, Randy, and his husband, Sergio, over for dinner the night after I returned home from New York to try one of my favorite new cocktails, a Mexican Martini, before serving my now famous (at least in local circles) spicy Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño-Stuffed Chicken Thighs.

Dinner was delicious, and the cocktails were flowing when my brother remarked that it was amazing how much I love bacon (I eat it almost every day, cholesterol be damned!), especially after the incident early on in my marriage to my ex-husband, Danny.

The story Randy was referring to happened just after Danny and I tied the knot and rented a tiny one-bedroom house on Crooked Road with an equally tiny backyard.

Like most newlyweds, we were on a very tight budget and always trying to save money anywhere we could, so for our eggs and bacon we would run up the road to the Jones Family Farm on Saturday mornings and load up on fresh eggs and bacon at a low price that fed us for a whole week!

One Saturday, Danny left to pick up our eggs and bacon and was gone for almost an hour. I started to worry, and was about to call Mr. Jones to see if he was still there, when Danny pulled up in his truck. I heard him burst through the back door to the kitchen and went to meet him to make sure he stored the eggs and bacon in the refrigerator. (He sometimes was easily distracted, once leaving an unopened carton of ice cream on the counter to melt into mush.)

As I met him in the kitchen, the first words out of my mouth were, “What in the world have you done, and where's my bacon?”

Danny just stood there in the middle of our tiny kitchen, a big dumb smile on his face and a tiny bundle in his arms wrapped in a dish towel. He unwrapped the towel to reveal a baby piglet.

My gut told me to take the piglet back to the Jones farm immediately, but I'm a sucker for a cute animal, so I was instantly smitten. I never even heard Danny say, “This will save us a ton of money. We can raise him and then he can provide us this coming winter's bacon and pork supply.”

Apparently his words were drowned out by my cooing as I cuddled the adorable piglet in my arms and whispered in his tiny ear, “I'm naming you Bubba.”

Well, it wasn't long before Bubba was eating us right out of house and home and costing us our hard-earned savings, which was a pittance to begin with since I was pregnant with my daughter, Gemma, and not working.

Within a week, Bubba rooted and ate our entire vegetable garden, destroyed every inch of our backyard (which emptied out our already small savings account). We tried satisfying Bubba's huge appetite with grain from the feed store and any leftovers that we had begged and hoarded from our neighbors and friends.

Even though Bubba was high maintenance, I still loved the little pig.

Except he wasn't so little.

After eight weeks, he was already a whopping sixty pounds.

Whenever Bubba's antics stressed me out, Danny would pipe up and reassure me that it would all be over in a few months and we would be chowing down like kings during the cold winter months!

Again, I'm not really sure why I didn't hear this.

By the time Bubba was six months old, he was a jaw dropping 280 pounds! And he was no longer popular with the neighbors. He had broken through our little wooden fence, trampling and eating Mrs. Gray's entire prize flower garden. He terrorized some neighbor children who were having their first campout alone in their backyard when he broke down the fence and began rooting around their tent for food, all the while snorting and grunting. The poor kids' terrified screams about a hideous monster lurking about had every neighbor with a shotgun (which on the island is just about everyone) running around the street and into the woods in search of the Bigfoot-like mythical creature. Luckily we managed to lure Bubba home with some celery sticks until things settled down.

His rampage continued into late fall. He ate another neighbor's fresh fruit and veggies she had bought at the farmers' market when she left them on her steps while carrying her other groceries into her house. And what was almost the last straw, the police showed up in our neighborhood because some tourists riding their bikes called 911 to report being attacked by a wild boar.

In Bubba's defense, he was just saying hello. He was a very friendly pig. But his presence was a toll on our neighbors and our now overdrawn bank account.

Finally, the day came when it was time for Bubba to—how can I say it?—pay us back.

On the day Danny loaded him into a borrowed trailer and headed out, it dawned on me that my big sweet boy was about to become a pile of bacon.

I cried and swore I wouldn't eat a piece of bacon ever again! Especially not my Bubba! I would become a vegan! Yes, I was that distraught.

When Danny returned home, I couldn't even go to greet him. I was curled up on the couch, a blanket wrapped around me, a complete blubbering mess. He handed me a package of store-bought bacon for our winter freezer and an envelope stuffed with money.

“Where did you get this?” I asked, sniffing.

“Pig farm outside Belfast. The owner thought Bubba was a nice, good-looking, unusually large pig, so he bought him to be a breeder pig so he can sire a whole bunch of giant pigs!”

Bubba had been given a reprieve!

He was no longer on death row!

And I was still able to eat bacon.

I just stopped thinking about where it came from.

One way to do that is to have a strong Mexican Martini designed to help you forget just about everything.

 

 

 

Ingredients
1 ounce blue curaçao
1 ounce your favorite tequila
½ ounce Midori melon liquor
½ ounce triple sec
Favorite fruit to garnish (optional)

 

Add ice to a shaker, then pour all of the ingredients. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish if you wish, then be prepared to be wowed.

 

 

 

Ingredients
Package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 8-ounce package pepper-jack cheese
1 small jar sliced jalapeños
1 package thick-sliced bacon
1 bottle mesquite (or your favorite flavor)
Toothpicks

 

Marinate the chicken thighs in your favorite marinade flavor for at least 45 minutes or even overnight for more flavor. Slice the cheese into
-inch slices. Remove two jalapeños per chicken thigh from the jar and set aside on paper towel. Place one piece of bacon per chicken thigh on a plate.

To assemble, lay a chicken thigh on a piece of bacon. Put a slice of cheese on the thigh, followed by two jalapeño slices on top of cheese. Roll chicken thigh up so the cheese and jalapeño are stuffed inside. Then wrap the bacon strip around the thigh and secure with toothpicks.

Repeat until all the thighs are done. Grill for about 25 minutes and enjoy!