Bacon Weave

Two years ago, at Christmas, Big Guy--one of the most ardent lovers of bacon--gifted the I Love Bacon cookbook to one of the world's greatest cooks Mom, who doesn't eat bacon. That she doesn't eat it never entered Big Guy's gift-giving strategy. That she could, and would, cook bacon did. Much to Big Guy's disappointment, Mom hasn't used I Love Bacon as anything more than a paperweight. But I know she can't flip over a one-pound package of Oscar Mayer's best without thinking of her son-in-law. Recently, Big Guy received a letter from Mom. Inside, a recipe ripped from a local southern newspaper, headlined: Bacon Explosion For Super Bowl Parties. Handwritten across the bottom, "For the bacon king in this family." Big Guy got excited, as the recipe only calls for four ingredients: 2 lbs. thick cut bacon, 1 1/2 lb. Italian sausage, barbecue rub and barbecue sauce. Then he quit reading, probably figuring I would take up the bacon cause on his behalf. I didn't. But I did enjoy reading the recipe. It starts, "Using 10 slices of bacon, weave a square lattice." The instructions then call for frying the rest of the bacon, cooking the sausage, then rolling up the cooked slab of cholesterol inside the tightly woven bacon lattice, and dipping it in barbecue sauce.  I don't know if a bacon lover or an artistically challenged cook developed this bacon bomb. I am sure it was a Southerner. And should Big Guy choose to try the Bacon Explosion, he'll be the one weaving the strips.