To an American, there’s little else more exotic than Europeans. They live far away across a big pool of water. They speak in interesting accents that make them sound educated and worldly wise. And quite often, they do it all with pictures.

Americans tend to be very wordy. We like to describe everything in great detail so that everyone knows exactly what’s going on and nobody can get sued. One trip to Ikea changes all of that, though. Their instruction manuals are designed for any person speaking any language. By simply showing us the cartoony exploits of an often frustrated man with rounded corners and a curious (but dedicated) attitude, we’re able to assemble anything from a chair to a bunk bed with just a screwdriver, an allen wrench and some time.

(photo credit)

Which brings us to Arnstein M., who sent us an email to say that he had made chocobacon. Now, chocolate covered bacon is nothing new to BT – we’ve covered it many times before. But Arnstein’s pictoral recipe of his Nordic (or Swiss?) chocolate covered bacon is so beautiful in its simplicity, that we just had to share it with you.

Here’s a sample shot…

(photo credit)

And you can check out the whole picture story at Ninjas Killed My Family.

– Mr. B

This year’s Los Angeles (LA) County Fair was a riot of food, fun, and festivities. A notable addition to the fair this year was the increasingly-popular chocolate dipped (AKA chocolate covered) bacon.

As I walked the fairgrounds I noticed no fewer than ten separate booths selling bacon covered in rich milk chocolate. After a day of walking around, seeing the sites, and riding the rides I decided it was time to give this treat a try. All the booths were selling the same variety of bacon and chocolate so I walked to the nearest booth and placed my order.

For $5.00 I was presented a small paper hot dog holder containing five large strips of bacon covered in rich chocolate. As I took the first bite a stranger walked up to me and asked “is that the chocolate bacon?”. I said “yes, would you like to try a piece.” To my surprise the man was a bacon lover and jumped at the chance for some free bacon.

I‘ll tell you what I told him though…it tasted great, until you got to the bacon. The stranger took a bite, gave me a funny look, and said “you know, you’re right. It’s great until the bacon.” I’m not sure if the problem was overly-rich chocolate, poor-quality bacon, or a combination of both but this chocolate covered bacon was definitely not a winner.

Save your 5 bucks and go for a ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl.

Smaste™ rating: 18.223

So I tried one more time to get some chocolate covered bacon from the OC Fair. This time it was Thursday night and I was there to see if Huey Lewis’s Heart of Rock and Roll was still beating, and to get some chocolate covered bacon.

Sadly, the booth was once again unattended.

I happeend to hear another group talking about the stuff as they walked by, so I asked tehm what they knew about it. According to one guy, the bacon is $5.50, but he hadn’t actually had it.

I’m sorry to have missed it, but something tells me that people will still like bacon next summer, so it’s likely to return. I also hold out hope that some of you will find chocolate covered bacon at your country and state fairs and let us know about it. I just wasn’t that lucky.

Baconless, we went to see Huey Lewis. Somehow we managed to remain hip enough to be square.

– Mike

We first talked about chocolate covered bacon last June, and we’ve seen more about it in other articles since then. I thought that it was kind of a novelty thing that existed in rare spaces. Then I went to the OC Fair, and look what I saw…

At one magical booth they sell both Churros AND chocolate covered bacon!

Or so they advertise.

Sadly, upon closer inspection, there was no chocolate covered bacon on display, and no happy vendor behind the counter to sell some of it to me.

I can only imagine that upon running out of chocolate covered bacon the seriously embarassed vendor tucked tail and ran for her life to find more bacon.

I’ll be back at the Fair next Thursday to see Huey Lewis (and the News!) at the Pacific Amphitheater, so you can bet I’ll have another walk by that booth to see if they have restocked by then.

– Mike