Authentic Cuban at Habana Libre

As part of a run into the city on an errand the other day, the family and I decided to try much-lauded Cuban spot Habana Libre for a quick lunch.

It was good, but not great.

We liked the appetizers that we ordered; a couple types of empanadas, croquettas, and platanos maduros (deep fried slices of ripe plantain). While tasty, we thought the portions were a bit small for the price and when we asked for sour cream with the fried plantains, they said they don't offer it. Now, I'm no expert on Cuban food, but I've always thought that sour cream is the traditional accompaniment to fried ripe plantains. When I was cooking at Nacional 27, we got plenty of Cuban regulars, who would often order this dish as a special off-menu request, and it was a given that we served it with sour cream. Hm. No matter, since the garlicky oil that they served with everything sufficed.

The sandwiches, however, are the real draw here. Huge, stuffed with great-tasting authentic fillings (read; pork), and served on really fresh, crackly french bread. Although I did want to try it, we passed on the jibarito, and went with a pan con lechon and a cubano.

Both were completely great, enormous, and a total bargain at six bucks apiece. If I worked anywhere near this place, I'd be there everyday.

The pan con lechon (bread with whole roast suckling pig) is a reasonable facsimile of its namesake. It didn't appear to be filled with real pulled suckling pig, but what I believe was shoulder meat was flavorful and moist, although it got even better when I drizzled some of the aforementioned garlic oil over the whole works.

The cubano, was, I thought, the real star. This thing was just stuffed with great-tasting, moist roast pork loin, ham, cheese, mustard, and pickles. The fillings were good and plentiful, with the pickles and mustard doing a great job of cutting through the richness of the pork and cheese, but what made this sandwich great was the bread. I don't know where they're getting their bread, and I'm not well-versed enough to parse the differences between real, authentic Cuban bread (made with lard) and a good quality French baguette, but, honestly, with the bread situation as bad as it is in Chicago, I'm not really going to split hairs. This was really good fresh bread. Crackly crispy on the outside, and very tender, soft, and great fresh bread flavor inside. A good sandwich served on really great bread is not an easy thing to find. Even harder to find one that fills you up for six bucks. This is the appeal, in my opinion, of Habana Libre.

Even better, they take this good bread, stuffed full of good pork products, and do the traditional cubano press on it. It arrives glistening with oil (I assume it's more of that garlic oil), nicely flattened and toasted crispy on both sides thanks to the pressing. It doesn't appear that they used a panini press, since there were no lines on the bread, so I'm guessing that they're toasting these things on a flat top griddle under a hot saute pan or a grill press.


Seriously--take a look at that thing. It's a work of art.

There was one very unpleasant part of this lunch, although it had nothing to do with the restaurant itself. My wife decided that it was my turn to change the baby and that she needed to be changed right now. Why this was so urgent, I have no idea, but sometimes it's better to just nod, smile, and do what your wife is telling you to do. I sensed this was one of those times, although I was fairly daunted at the prospect of changing a baby in the bathroom. I was guessing they didn't have one of those nice roomy "family restrooms" or even a changing station. I was correct.

The men's bathroom was, as is expected in a small, independently owned restaurant, very small. It was clean enough, but there was just a sink and a toilet, so me and the car seat were a tight squeeze, so I had no real other choice but to change the baby on the floor, jamming myself into a tiny space between the door and the base of the toilet. It was going ok until my leg cramped up in the middle of the whole operation, plus the kid kept trying to roll over and grab the door-stopper spring thing. Shades of the airplane bathroom scene from Tommy Boy. Wow. Not good. I slapped a new diaper on the kid as fast as I could and pried myself out of there.

My wife promptly split the scene to go feed the baby in the car and Henry and I stayed behind and took care of the bill while enjoying a Cuban coffee and a coconut flan. It was kind of a pricy lunch for the three of us (around fifty bucks, after tip), but we ordered quite a bit in order to try a lot of different things. They did charge us two bucks each (if I recall correctly--can't find a copy of the menu online) for cans of Diet Coke, which seemed a bit over the top, but now that we've been and know the deal, we could easily get out of there with a really excellent lunch for eight bucks a person.

All in all, I give this place high marks. I love the small independent vibe of the place, the service was attentive and competent, and the food--particularly the sandwiches--was really quite good and an excellent deal.

I'd certainly go back, or, more likely, stop in for a few sandwiches to take home. If you're nearby, or want to check out some Cuban food, I recommend giving this place a try.

Latte Art at CoffeeFest

I'd been planning on attending CoffeeFest 2009 before I started writing this blog, for a café consulting project that may or may not pan out. But now that I'm viewing every food-related event as another potential blog entry, my interest in the latte art competition that was going on in conjunction with this trade show grew exponentially.

Taking my new role as cub reporter perhaps a bit too seriously, I packed up my journalist's notebook and my cool new phone which allows me to leave my camera at home, and embarked on the train-to-bus trip down to Navy Pier, where the event was being held. I even managed to finagle press credentials through blogger community website Foodbuzz (although not without some hassle when I actually walked up to collect the pass). Anyway, after all that was sorted out, I checked out the first day of the barista competitions.

There were actually two separate competitions going on--latte art and the more all-encompassing barista championships. The latte art competition involves funky, tattooed and pierced baristas creating these amazingly cool patterns out of coffee and steamed milk using just a cup and a pitcher, by simply pouring the milk into the cup a certain way. It's quite incredible to watch. There's a very specific way that they steam the milk, of course, in order to create just the right texture of foam that allows it to pour (true baristas never use a spoon to move the foam from pitcher to mug, I've recently learned), yet still maintain enough body to support the designs. The trick is to keep the brown coffee part of the design as distinct as possible from the frothy white milk foam part of the design.

All latte art looks pretty cool to me, especially when I'm handed a drink over at Intelligentsia or The Italian Coffee Bar with no expectations that it will have a pretty rosette or tulip on the top of it, but after watching the first few baristas put up their three entries in the allotted five minutes, I started to grasp the finer points of it.

It's not something that translates well to verbal descriptions, so I'll post a few pictures.

This is the first one I saw, and I thought it was so amazing that I took about twenty pictures. After I saw a few more examples, I was able to see that this entry lacks sharp distinctions between the brown and white portions and, therefore, didn't score all that well.


This one really shows just how thick and sturdy the foam is on these drinks. Look how the design just sits up there on top, and how much texture and dimension it has.

A tulip design.


This might've been the coolest one I saw all day, but it was done during the barista's warm up period, so it didn't count. The ones he poured during the actual competition period didn't end up being as good as this one.

This was the winner of Friday's round, an entry by ex-Alterra Coffee guy Justin Teisl, currently of Four Barrel Coffee in San Francisco. Note how brown the brown part is and how white the white part is, with almost no muddy areas where they mix. Also, check out how he gets the little brown stripes inside of the delicate white leaves.

After getting up early to get down to Navy Pier by 9:30, downing more than a few espressos, and watching the latte art for a while, I started getting those hunger pangs you only get a few hours after you've had way too much coffee, and I figured I'd better get something to eat before entering the trade show, where I'd be likely to just scarf down every muffin and biscotto I could lay my hands on.

So I headed back down into the tourist-trap mall insanity that is Navy Pier. Gah. Now I remember why I never go to this place. Every bad mall cliche you can think of; the cloying scent of those cinnamon-sugared nuts, cheesy kiosks vending cheap sunglasses, name keychains, and cell phone accessories, air-brushed t-shirt art, the obligatory Build-a-Bear workshop, schlocky Chicago souvenirs, and bad corporate chain food outlets by the gross (double entendre intentional).

Plus, as an added bonus, in addition to the overwhelming mantle of crass corporate consumer-land insanity, I was treated to the sensory pleasure that is finding one's self in a food court amidst at least three separate elementary school field trips while buzzing on about twelve espresso shots.

Have I said 'gah!' yet? GAAAH!

I quickly assessed my limited options--Bubba Gump, the Billy Goat, one of those gloppy, corn-starch-laden Chinese scoop and serve places, some deli, America's Dog, and a few other depressing options. I went with McDonald's, simply because the lines were moving the fastest and I wanted to fill my belly quickly and get away from this particular circle of hell as soon as humanly possible. I downed my chicken selects joylessly while the schoolkids threw ice at each other and bumped my chair as they galloped around the food court, and then I quickly scurried back to the CoffeeFest. Sometimes eating is purely about staving off the discomfort of hunger.

The trade show itself was unremarkable, but the Barista Championship competition was really cool. This is a much more free-form and all-encompassing contest, which attempts to incorporate all aspects of a barista's job. The competitors are given 45 minutes (15 for set-up, 15 for presentation, and 15 for break down) total, and must give a presentation to a panel of judges that includes serving them espresso shots, cappuccinos, and a specialty drink of their choice.

It's partly about technical ability, but it's got a lot more to do with the barista's ability to pick an interesting coffee, present and describe it well, and put on an entertaining, well-polished demonstration for the judges. They're scored on the taste of the beverages, but also on how they comport themselves, their technical skills, cleanliness, and creativity.

It's quite a little show. The baristas are miked and background music of their choosing plays while they do their thing. Most of them brought all sorts of fancy serving pieces and glass carafes for their milk, and the specialty drinks are where they really pull out all the stops, employing side burners for warming non-coffee components like spices, syrups, or coconut milk. Some of them even gave very detailed instructions on how the judges were supposed to drink their specialty beverage; "I recommend you drink this coffee by taking three sips: first, you'll take a small sip, and you'll get the chocolaty nose and bitterness of this single-origin estate Yirga Cheffe. Then, with your second sip, draw in most of the shot, where you'll get the full fruity nose and complex notes. The last small sip will give you a hit of bittersweet chocolate, which lines the bottom of the cup, and that will provide a nice, sweet finish."

Whoa. Crazy, dude. It was cool to see all these slacker-looking coffee-heads taking the whole thing so seriously, speaking in terminology previously reserved for wine wonks. But also kind of surreal. I'm a coffee lover and feel that I can taste and appreciate some of the differences in various types and blends, but I'm not sure that some of this stuff isn't the result of self-puffery and/or a few too many bong hits out by the dumpsters behind the coffeehouse.

Anyway, whatever the motivation, it's good to see so many people taking this whole thing so seriously and the barista championship things was really fun to watch.

I'm not even sure who ended up winning, and, truthfully, I don't care. The whole experience was one of those eye-opening things for me where you realize just how deep and involved some people are with certain skills/hobbies/vocations. It's not really my thing, but it's cool to see how passionate these people are and the espresso certainly tastes good. Despite the unfortunate venue, I'll be back next year to check out the barista competitions and indulge in some good coffee.

Probably wise to re-think my lunch plan, though. Maybe I'll make a quick stop at Bari to pick up a sandwich and then shoot over on the Grand Avenue bus. That way I'll get two blog posts for the effort.

BBQ Miscue

Following up last week's dinner at Asian Bistro, my intrepid dining companion and I set out in search of some low-n-slow barbecue in the Northwest suburbs. I did a little research online and selected Smokin' T's in Long Grove. We were hungry as we pulled up and ready to tear into some ribs, pulled pork, and whatever sides they offered.

The place is located in a strip mall, one of these humongous small-town-size ones where you can't really even see the stores from the street, which I hate, and as we navigated the convoluted path into the parking lot, I spotted T's.

It looked like a Chipotle--which isn't what I expect from a quality barbecue joint. And it had a drive-thru. It also wasn't clear that they were actually open. We parked anyway--we were the only car within sight--and walked up to the restaurant, still uncertain whether this place was, in fact, open for business.

Well, they were. At least technically. The door opened when I pulled on it. But nearly half an hour before their closing time of 8pm, all the chairs were up on the tables and the kitchen looked totally cleaned down. We asked the counter guy if they were open and he cheerfully replied "yes". We asked if we could eat there, which we were planning on, and, again he gave us a cheerful, welcoming "yes".

"Ok", we said, and Mitch made a quick visit to the bathroom while I started to figure out what we should order. But as I was looking at the menu, I started thinking about the prospect of eating in an empty restaurant with the chairs up on the tables. I knew I'd feel guilty about keeping these guys late when they were obviously ready to go home, and forcing them to dirty equipment that they'd already cleaned for the day.

I also wondered if the quality of the food would be compromised. The barbecue that they'd been serving all day had already been held warm for who knows how long and then put away. If I ordered it now, they'd probably just re-heat it again (perhaps in the microwave) and serve it to me. And what about if we ordered fries? Was their fryer already turned off? Would I get fries that were cooked in oil that wasn't hot enough? They'd be rushing to just get our order out so they could close up--I've worked in restaurants, so I know how things get compromised at the end of the day when the cooks are anxious to to get out of there.

So, we bolted. We talked it over and opted to go elsewhere, despite the good things I'd read about the barbecue at this place.

Let this be a lesson to you, restaurant-owners. If you're open, be OPEN. Not half-open, not open but all cleaned down and ready to take off the moment the door locks. Not "you guys are welcome to take the chairs down off the tables and have a seat".

Running a restaurant is about more than providing food. It's about hospitality. It's about making people feel that they're welcome and their presence is appreciated. The counter guy at Smokin T's did his best to say the right things to us, but he couldn't counter the non-verbal messages that we received. There's more to being open than having the door unlocked and the lights turned on.

We decided to go to another nearby spot and grab a pizza, and as we were leaving, we talked about the choices that this restaurant's staff had made, and how those choices cost them our forty-dollar tab. Now, who knows, maybe they would rather forgo our forty bucks and save the hour or so of payroll that it would cost to keep the place looking open until they're actually closed. Could be. But I doubt it. Not in this economic climate--places like this need every diner and every dollar they can get.

But, even worse, they lost the opportunity to make a positive impression on us, and we're potential repeat customers who live in the area. They also lost any potential for positive word of mouth from us telling friends, family, or readers of this blog about their restaurant. Their ribs and chicken might be the best I'd ever eaten, but I'll probably never know at this point, because they created at atmosphere that made me reluctant to sit down and order, feeling that I'd probably be uncomfortable and be inconveniencing their staff.

We might give Smokin' T's another chance. But I doubt we will, since they close at 8pm on weeknights and it's hard for us to get out there early enough to be sure we won't have another repeat of this performance. Maybe sometime when we're interested in take out.

I wish them the best of luck and harbor no ill will as a result of this experience. Mostly, I'm just disappointed. I love barbecue and had high hopes for this place. Maybe I missed out. But at least I got a good real-world example of how hospitality involves a lot more than just making and serving food. It's something I'll take with me in my professional life, as I move forward in my career running kitchens and restaurants, as a concrete example of what not to do, and why.

sMACked Down

As a well-seasoned mac-n-cheese maker, I snapped at the opportunity to compete against several well-known Chicago chefs in a benefit cook-off for the Organic School Project. When I spotted this event listed on Gaper's Block Drive Thru a few weeks ago, I immediately shot off a quick email making a case for why I thought my mac and cheese recipe would be the winner.

The event was called sMACkdown, and I learned a few days later that I'd be competing for culinary bragging rights against chefs from Kuma's Corner, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, The Publican, and Boka, as well as 15 other regular cooks like myself.

But it wasn't those hacks that I was concerned with. Nope. The big game I was hunting was none other than the Top Chef herself, Stephanie Izard.

I watch very little television, but I'm a big fan of the Bravo reality show, and Stephanie was the winner of Season Four (Chicago). So not only did she win the title of Top Chef, beat a number of other very impressive chefs, and turn out some fairly innovative dishes (braised pistachios, anyone?), but she did it on her home turf and represented Chicago.

Well, last night she was going to be on *my* turf, and I was gunning for her. I had designs on writing a great blog entry about how I trounced the Top Chef. In fact, I've even been considering applying for season six of the show, and doing some trash-talking after my triumph was going to be a key feature of my audition tape.

Unfortunately, I lost. But....so did Stephanie. So, technically, I tied the Top Chef. Ah hah! Not too shabby after all.

Attendees got three tickets each to vote for their favorite mac and cheese entries, and the top five vote-getters advanced to the judging round, which resulted in three trophy-winners. The win went to James Gottwald of Rockit Bar and Grill (clickers beware--very loud website), and second place went to Amalia Obermeier-Smith of Kuma's Corner. Third place--and the only non-pro chef to bring home a trophy--went to LTH'er KennyZ.

Stephanie (Top Chef) Izard was gracious despite suffering a humilating defeat.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Ubiquitous uber-mixologist Adam Seger was there mixing up some sort of godforsaken cheddar-cube garnished MAC-tini (I stuck with the Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat--the event was held at the local brewery's Wrigleyville outpost), and the room was literally jammed with charitable comfort food aficionados crowding three-deep around the ring of chafing dishes from whence came the goods.

I applied my signature method of moving through crowded venues (big guy, move with a sense of purpose, people tend to get outta my way) and sampled most of the competition. Some were very good, some were fairly bland, and some were just strange; peanut butter and jelly mac and cheese with a grape breadcrumb topping? Asian-flavored mac and cheese with edamame?

My entry was the exact same thing I make for my family here at home; the classic, straight up mac and cheese. (My mac and cheese recipe and technique will be detailed in a future post). No bacon, no truffle oil, no weird cheeses. I figured, why mess with a good thing?

Well....the winner featured braised oxtail. And both runners up featured truffle oil, one with morel mushrooms, the other, Gorgonzola. So much for that strategy. Strangely, though, the winning recipe is supposed to be going onto a school lunch program menu as a result of this event. Should be interesting to see how the kids take to oxtail.

It'll have to be locally-raised, organic, hormone-free oxtail, of course, because that's what this organization is all about--bringing these type of important food values to schoolkids. It's a really cool project which aims to re-vamp school lunch programs in a way that teaches kids valuable lessons about horticulture, nutrition, and cooking while also preparing made-from-scratch organic lunches on a daily basis. It's similar to the kind of thing that's been going on in France for years, and to what Alice Waters is doing in the Bay Area with her Edible Schoolyard Program.

At the end of the night, I may not have earned any bragging rights, but I met some pretty cool and interesting people, I watched a grown man proudly hoist a macaroni-festooned plastic trophy over his head, learned about a very cool organization trying to teach kids to reject the agro-pharma-industrial food establishment, and--bonus!-- I loaded a pretty good-sized to-go container full up with leftover mac and cheese to bring home.

Not a total loss, I guess. Ms. hot-shot Top Chef, however, fresh off her humiliating tie with yours truly, will be jetting off to the Bahamas for a Club Med food and wine festival. Grrrr. No wonder she was so gracious about losing.

The Bacon List--Broadbent's Original Hickory Smoked

Back in December, when I started this epic, far-reaching project that I'm calling The Bacon List, I detailed the difference between two drastically different types of bacon; bacon that's mass-produced, made cheaply, using faster, less expensive processing, and bacon that's made the old-fashioned way. I have been referring to the two styles as "grocery store bacon" and "fancy bacon" throughout subsequent entries I've made to The List, but I've yet to review a fancy or artisanal bacon.

Well, let this be the first. And it's a doozie. Damn, damn, damn is this good bacon.

Broadbent’s B & B Foods is a company based in Kuttawa, Kentucky that's been making country hams and bacon for more than 80 years. The Broadbent family business was, however, sold in 1999 to a couple named Ronny and Beth Drennan who appear to have had the wisdom not to mess with success, as far as the ham- and bacon-making process goes, but who have had enough business acumen to go ahead and ramp up the mail order and promotion. It seems they're smart enough to realize that they've got a world-class product on their hands here, and that this is the internet age where anyone can buy any yummy foodstuff they can dream up with a few clicks of the mouse button. Good thinkin', Drennans.

Locals bemoaned the sale, fearing that their traditional country products would go by the wayside, but the Drennans have allayed any fears, and perhaps even raised the already stellar reputation of Broadbent. Their hams have been named Grand Champion in multiple categories over multiple years at the Kentucky State Fair, and the American Association of Meat Processors (AAMP) has named Broadbent’s country hams their National Grand Champion Winners four of the last five years.

National foodies have raved about their products as well. James Beard, in a 1974 column, wrote “It was only lately, while in Kentucky, that I become acquainted with these superb hams. There’s a company called Broadbent-Bingham that sells cured and aged country hams. If you visit them, you can also buy extraordinarily good ham hocks, thick ham steaks and hams, all cured the same way. I carried back a cooked ham for Thanksgiving which was much admired by all who tasted it”.

Also, David Rosengarten covered Broadbent in a 2003 edition of his newsletter The Rosengarten Report, saying that he was "completely knocked out" by their bacon.

I first found out about this producer while researching gift ideas for my dad, another bacon aficianado. I was considering buying him a membership to one of those hideously expensive Bacon of the Month Clubs, but my budget didn't allow for spending $315 plus shipping on a friggin' year's worth of bacon, so I was forced to think outside the box.

I found myself perusing the website of the famous Zingerman's Deli (and now global mail-order specialty food retailer) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and their bacon of the month club, which listed all the various producers that were featured each month. I figured I'd just google'em up and see which ones had their own websites, order directly from the source, and create my own bacon sampler, hopefully saving some money by eliminating the middleman.

Broadbent's Original Hickory Smoked was on their list, and so my dad was gifted with a couple pounds of their fine product. (Obviously, I also ordered a few pounds for myself. I'm really bad with Christmas-gift shopping that way.) Is there a finer way to celebrate the birth of Jesus than gifts of cured pork? I think not.

And what can I say? Swoon! This bacon is why God created pigs. And hardwood. And fire. Having eaten and reviewed a bunch of factory-made, mass-produced bacons prior to eating and reviewing this one may have influenced me some, but eating this stuff was like a revelation. We were like "oh, DAMN! This is what it's supposed to taste like!"

How many interesting adjectives and descriptors can I come up with to tell you how freakin' good this bacon is? I'll do my best, but probably still won't do this wonderful product justice. Someone should build a shrine to these fine Kentucky folks and their devilish alchemy of traditional pork curing and smoking. Put'em in the hall of fame. If there's not a hall of fame, build one. Seriously, people. I am not kidding.

Thank you, Broadbent. Thank you Drennans. Thank you Zingerman's, and thank you, tasty piggies, whose bellies were transformed by salt, sugar, and smoke into this fine, fine product.

Ok. Let's do the rundown:

Designation--Fancy or Grocery Store? Fancy. Identified by the manufacturer as "country" bacon. Purchased via mail order from Broadbent's website.

Price--How much did I pay per pound for the bacon? $8.19/lb. sold by the website for $23.90 for four packs of 14 oz. each, which is $6.83/lb. I bought two four-packs and paid $9.50 shipping, which works out to an additional $1.36/lb. for shipping, hence the lofty total. Yikes. Not cheap.

Uncooked appearance--Color, texture, wet- or dry-ness, mushy or firm, etc... Asymmetrical slices indicate that the belly hasn't been pressed or 'tumbled'. The color is a nice bright red streaked with clean white fat. Texture is firm but moist. Visible outer 'crust' appears darker and harder. This is a hallmark of bacon that is truly smoked over burning hardwood. All slices appear to be 'center cut', resulting in a nice uniformity of product--no 'all lean', small, or weirdly-shaped pieces in the pack.

How it cooks--Tendency to curl, how much it shrinks, tendency to spatter... Very little shrinkage. Typical of artisanally-produced bacon that is dry-cured and smoked over a longer period of time, it hardly shrank at all. This is due to the fact that the meat isn't injected with any saline, sugar, or phosphate solutions like the factory-produced stuff, and the long hot smoking pulls all the moisture out during the production process. The end result is more meat on the plate after it's cooked.

Cooked appearance--Color, shape, texture. Dark outer edge where it was exposed to more smoke, appealing curl, good color. Slices are just the right thickness, resulting in a perfect crispy yet chewy bite.

How does it taste--Sweetness, saltiness, smokiness, texture (melting, chewy, flabby, spongy), "porkiness". Amazing.
Smoke flavor for days, but not that fakey processed artificial smoke. Real hardwood smoke flavor that just smacks you in the face. Very restrained on the sweetness and saltiness. Both are really more complimentary to the pork flavor than they are elements all on their own. It's all about the great pork flavor accented by the smoke. I would also be remiss if I did not mention the texture, which is just incredible. The lean parts are crispy and chewy at the same time, and perfectly so. The fat just utterly liquefies when you bite into it, and it feels almost cool on the tongue, kind of like when you step on a cool spot on your floor and you think for a minute that you stepped in water. Do you know what I mean? Am I rambling, here? Seriously, it defies description, despite my fumblingly lame efforts. All I can do is once again resort to saying stuff like "Damn, Damn, Damn!"

Overall rating--All bacons reviewed will be given an overall rating from 1-10, with 1 being practically inedible (I say "practically" since, you know, it's bacon--how bad can it be?), 5 being a perfectly serviceable bacon for use in cooking or on a sandwich, and 10 being....well, let's be honest; there won't be a 10. 9.1. I don't really see how it could get much better from here, but I'm leaving a bit of room at the top and keeping my mind open.

Eating this wonderful bacon and clicking around the company's website has made me very curious about their other products, especially their award-winning hams. I know a little about American country ham, but not as much as I probably should. I'm much more knowledgable about Spanish jamons and Italian prosciuttos than I am about these US-made products that have been made for centuries right here in our own backyard. I'm really considering ordering one up. American country ham would make for a fairly interesting blog entry, I think.