Eating one's own bird food.

Some of you have seen and warmly commented on my freshly baked bread photo, so you're aware that I can occasionally cook something yummy, which also photographs well.  Unfortunately that image gave rise to some assumptions that an appetizing image is indicative of one's overall skill and consistency in culinary craft.  Well, today's image is considerably different.  Read on if you care to learn about my fifty-cent food fiasco from yesterday.  Otherwise, click away, click away fast.

It was time to clean out the fridge and in doing so I found a pound of suspect bacon hiding in the back, under some innocent spinach tortillas.  The tortillas were green, as should be expected, but fortunately the bacon had not yet acquired such garish color.  The use-by date however was quickly approaching, so there was only one practical thing to do;  render down the whole pound and make bacon soap!  Just kidding.  I rendered it down and saved the remaining minuscule amount of questionably digestible crispy meaty bits for salad toppings.  I containerized the grease for some future high fat, high flavor cooking.

I love bacon.  Who doesn't, right?  Those who don't are probably lying anyway.  Even though I love it, I seldom buy it to cook at home; hence the almost past prime package I discovered lurking in the back of the fridge.  The problem with bacon is it's impossible to cook without getting even more hungry.  I mean that's a smell that could cause even rocks to salivate. And boy how it made me hungry, and for more than a simple salad too.  With stomach grumbling, I grabbed a box of corn-muffin mix and decided to make corn fritters in a Jiffy.  Sounded like a good plan since I had an already hot, well-greased pan, some leftover corn, and roughly an ounce of actual bacon remains standing by for garnish.  Makes me think they should price bacon by the net cooked weight.  An ounce of salty cured pork flesh surely should not cost five bucks or more.

So, obviously the photo above is not of bacon nor of fritters, so here's where bird food and foolishness enters the picture.  With mix, corn, and milk already commingling in a bowl like singles at a bar; I removed the lonely remaining egg  from the safe confines of it's post-consumer recycled cardboard carton, and promptly deposited said egg directly into the center of the floor with a disheartening splatter.  That's right, egg on my feet.  That's _never_ a good thing. To paraphrase my least favorite, formerly incarcerated, TV cook-tress.

With no egg left for binder in the batter, no bananas in the basket, and not enough brains to remember I could have used the flax seed in the fridge, I persevered with my new plan for binder-free fritters and proceeded to spoon my now questionable concoction into two small fritter-esque sized portions in the pan.  The buttons of batter bubbled and browned brilliantly.  The wafting aroma was wonderful, albeit not as wonderful as the bacon. Things were looking up.  Then tragedy struck.  Once my new BFFs were undermined by Mr. Spatula, {diabolical laugh} they literally fell apart into a less than appetizing loose lumpy and considerably unsightly mess.

Not one to assume appearance holds all keys to happiness, I tasted the fragrant but frightful results with what I can only describe as pessimistic optimism.  You know what?  That's actually not bad.  Not something I'll try to do again on purpose, but not nearly as displeasing as disfigured.  Definitely not fodder destined for the birds.  Actually the resident birds have become accustomed to apprehensively approaching any suspicious amount of "human food" I toss.  They even have an appointed taster, just to be sure.

Convinced the product was edible, and only the process need alteration, I thinned the remaining batter slightly and poured the sum of slurry into the hot pan, with the idea to finish if by browning under the broiler.  I'd reclassify it as crumbly corncake.  Perhaps I'd stumbled onto something new and exciting; or perhaps I'd simply cracked my head, like the ill-fated egg.  Regardless, exactly one second after pouring batter in pan, I realized the oven would never heat fast enough to brown the top of my destined disaster before the bottom burned blacker than the cast iron pan it was now half baked in.  If anything, I am perpetually under-prepared when I cook unplanned.  "It's a good thing" (TM) no one's watching.

Thank (deity of choice) for A. B. and his MacGyver-like low-tech innovations to highbrow cooking on Good Eats.  Because of his penchant for both flame and frugality, I was reminded that I could fire up my LP blowtorch -usually reserved for soldering pipe, but which I now keep in the pantry next to an ABC extinguisher- and use the propane plumbers-aid to put the finishing GB&D touches on top of my corny mess of masa madness.  And, by Jove, it worked!  Like that should spark surprise among Zeus's masses.  

At long last, the precise point of my rather long-winded rambling is to confirm that outward appearances often deceive onlookers; and pretty pictures, though succinct, seldom portray sufficiently a comprehensive story. My culinary skills sometimes suffer and the crumbly corncake concoction may not appear appetizing in images displayed or described, but crumbs are all that remain to dispute how it tasted.  And to top it all off, the cabin is still infused with bacon-y goodness, which I suspect will stay with me for a while.  Mmm, bacon.