More matters culinary

I'm tired of the bacon fetish currently so common among people interested in food. I'm waiting for round white eggplants and tender shell beans to come into vogue. But bacon, like the even-more-trendy cupcake, is delicious: The flesh of the most savory animal, in its most savory form.

What bacon is to ordinary meat, Benton's bacon is to ordinary bacon. It is thicker, richer, smokier, saltier. More in every way. I had been looking forward to eating a BLT for a little more than a year since my last one last summer -- the heirlooms have been ripening slowly here in the Rainy Place -- and finally had my chance this weekend. We slathered Gerard's bread with mayonnaise and filled the sandwich with perfectly cooked Smoky Mountain bacon and plump slices of heirloom tomato. Even without the "L," the sandwich was worth the wait.