Being the well read type, I just got around to the November 28th New York Times food section yesterday. My Dear One saves these for me; she reads the print edition and I read it on-line so we see different things and at wildly different times. Anyway, Wedding a blur? Here's the Recipe, grabbed me. It's Spiced nuts with bacon and the recipe is easy and interesting. There is a line referring to "burnished sticks of sweet and salty meat candy". Pork meat candy, at that.

The finished product is pretty good. It being early and all I didn't make up the Rye Manhattans she recommends as a go with, but that didn't detract from the overall experience. The problem with making this is that the 'burnished sweet and salty meat candies' don't all make it to the combining with the nuts part of the recipe - being quite wonderfully capable of standing on their own. Ms. Clark says that she only added the nuts to the bacon to "draw out the bacon pleasure". I don't think I will bother with the nuts at all the next time, tough it out, you know?!. I also think I will make somewhat more meat candy than the recipe calls for.

I never think about the curing properties of sugar. I know we used to get bacon with so much sugar in it that cooking it in a frying pan was simply a quick way to burned bacon. I know when I smoke fish - or anything else, really - sugar is an important part of the flavor, right behind salt, and helps preserves the food. I sure don't have to worry about preserving this bacon, however. It's all gone. 

There is a neat trick in the article. Roasted nuts are a great favorite around here especially at Christmas time. We make them by the ton and give them out and take them parties and it is always discouraging to see much of the seasoning spice lying on the bottom of the tin. Ms. Clark tosses the nuts with a little beaten egg white before adding the seasoning and the stuff stays on and the egg whites don't seem to interfer with the taste of the nuts. I probably haven't looked at any more than a couple of hundred nut roasting recipes and this is the first time I have seen egg whites used. It is worth remembering; I hope I do.