A Teaser and Chocolate-covered Bacon

This afternoon, my boyfriend and I ventured to Strasburg, PA, to visit a prospective purchase I had been thinking (a lot) about since we looked at it last Sunday. The women running the joint were hesitant to show me anything in the first place since it was at least ten minutes after closing time. (By the way, to all you antique shop owners out there, for Pete’s sake, if a customer is interested in buying something around closing time, let them have a few extra minutes to take a look before you kick them out. Also, provide public restrooms!) I managed to convince them to take it out of the case, and I had a fleeting chance to look through this tin box's contents...so fleeting that I misremembered the name associated with it (and therefore wasted a lot of time and frustration researching irrelevant names and dates this past week). After much deliberation and, as my boyfriend put it, "hemming and hawing," this afternoon, I can call myself the proud owner...



...of this...



...which, if you are lucky, will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Now that I have you hooked, I must encourage you to try my new favorite food.

About two weeks ago at the New Castle Farmers Market, I tried chocolate-covered bacon for the first time since I saw it at a downtown Wilmington cafe about a year ago. I loved it. Bacon...chocolate...together...so good. I'm not sure when chocolate-covered bacon first came onto the scene. Quick and dirty internet searches reveal little regarding its history. What I did discover is that people either love it or hate. Either way, I am glad that it is available locally.

This morning, I convinced my boyfriend, a self-proclaimed "casual vegetarian," to try it.

"I'm trusting you on this," he said. Before he even bit into the skewered bacon, I could tell by the look on his face that he was enjoying it.

"That is actually quite good, isn't it...surprisingly good," he exclaimed.

Ha! If you, too, are skeptical, I recommend giving it a try, if only to say that you have.