There is always a moment of guilt when, standing in the kitchen, you’re faced with the option of adding bacon. Bacon to breakfast, bacon to that turkey club, bacon to the mashed potatoes, bacon to the salad…bacon, in its salty crispness, plays extremely well with others. Which means, sometimes the only thing keeping bacon off the plate is self-restraint.
Self-restraint in the face of bacon? Almost nonexistent. Why even bother, when the result is a guaranteed success. (Always.)
In making Alice Waters’ Cream Biscuits, there was however, a moment of doubt. Are the bacon and cheddar additions really necessary? After all, these biscuits aren’t called cream biscuits because they’re lacking in lipid goodness. But then something strange happened. The cookbook rationalized the addition of not only bacon, but cheddar too. In its own magic way, the cookbook spoke to me. Or rather, Alice Waters spoke to me, through her Brussels Sprouts gratin.
On page 295, Alice had left a map, a guide, just for these kinds of ‘should I add bacon to this’ situation. There, in the vegetable section, Alice had left clear directions to add bacon where it may otherwise have been thought inappropriate. (Obviously clear directions, my bacon-addicted brain rationalized.) It was as if she was speaking to me, guiding me to continue down the bacon-laden path. If bacon does wonders she said, to one of the most infamous of vegetables, Brussels Sprouts, if it’s acceptable to add bacon and ‘thin shavings of butter’ to vegetables, just imagine what a little bacon and cheese could do to the already lovely Cream Biscuits.
And Alice was right. So right.
Recipe on the following page.