Keeping Up With Jones

Franklin actually said “beer,” not bacon, but I am discouraged from writing about booze, or how much I may have imbibed Saturday night.

Between me and the readers, the two delicacies, beer and bacon, can be used interchangeably throughout this column.

So, I was eating bacon for breakfast the other day. . . OK, scratch the above statement before I am sent a dozen 12-step books.

Bacon is a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in bacon.

It is delicious by itself and on most foods. It is a pizza topping, it can be wrapped around little smokies, thrown atop a hamburger, or just served alongside some eggs.

For all the health nuts out there, bacon also goes in salads.

There is bacon-flavored salad dressing, bacon-flavored toothpaste, bacon salt, bacon bits and bacon soda.

Dogs can get in on the wonders of bacon by munching on Beggin’ Strips. I can’t comment on how closely the treats taste like bacon because I haven’t actually tried them — but Beggin’ Strips smell an awful lot like the real thing.

For Christmas I was given bacon-flavored dental floss and bacon-flavored popcorn, as well as the T-shirt that reads, “Bacon Is My Crack.”

Bacon also has made an appearance in desserts, but I’m not sold. I have seen bacon cupcakes and bacon shakes. I haven’t actually tried these, and I am a bit reluctant to, but I am not afraid to add some brown sugar to my pan of bacon.

There is even a bacon-infused vodka, the brand name is Bakon, that is incredible in a Bloody Mary.

I use bacon in recipes often. I have wrapped chicken and shrimp in pork, and a filet mignon is not complete without a fat slice of bacon around it.

I have even wrapped pork with bacon. What other type of meat can you wrap around a cut of meat from the same animal?

I suppose you could wrap a strip of steak around a hamburger, but why would anyone do that when they could wrap bacon around either one of those hunks of beef?

There is now a show called the “United States of Bacon.” I have caught it couple of times on a Saturday morning.

I also have had to turn the show off a couple of times. Watching that show made me incredibly hungry for, you guessed it, bacon.

While this entire column has been dedicated to the greatest food in the universe, that stuff isn’t great for you.

The strips of heavenly goodness are high in sodium and cholesterol. That isn’t a great combination, so like anything it is good in moderation.

However, those times that I had to switch off the tube while bacon from across the country was being glorified, was the result of already eating bacon that day.

And now I have done it again. After writing a bacon-themed column, the only thing I can think of now is eating sweet, delicious bacon.