A funny thing happened twice the past couple weeks. While making one of our favorite soups, New England Clam Chowder, I forgot a key ingredient -bacon!  The first time was few weeks back, when Scott's daughter, Kira, who recently became vegetarian herself, asked if I put bacon in the chowder that was in the hot soup well. I was ready to say of course, when everything came to a halt, like someone stopped the secondhand of time for everything except my brain concentrating on the correct answer to such a simple question. Just to put this in perspective, as a native Yankee, I've been making chowder the same for over two decades, always starting with bacon. In fact, as I like to say, all my favorite recipes start with render five pounds of bacon (even if you're only cooking for two). But possibly for the same reason I now need reading glasses, I had to think about it for several seconds before realizing that I did not add the bacon. Kira was pleased, as was I when I realized how good it was even without my secret culinary weapon. Further pondering led me to believe that at the time, I was using our big tilt skillet to cook the onions and garlic for both chowder and Marinara at the same time, and did not want to add the bacon to the onions for the Marinara, choosing to add it after I removed half the onions & garlic for the tomato sauce. Well this week had a similar scenario, but no multi-tasking with two simultaneous recipes was involved. I simply forgot the bacon. But again, the end result was very pleasing, perhaps even more so than the usual bacon propagated version of years past. So what are your thoughts? Chowder -bacon or no bacon? Cast your vote! 

 

P.S. Can this fortunate accident be a hint to a vegetarian future? Fat chance! I like Big Burger Wednesday & BrieLT's too much!