Cholesterolapalooza 2010

Well, Cholesterolapalooza 2010 has come and gone, but unfortunately due to a court mandated gag order, I am unable to discuss anything that occurred at the event. I’m not even joking here. A few of us got arrested and were released on bail with the one stipulation being that we won’t discuss anything that happened at Cholesterolapalooza prior to our court date. I know many of you were looking forward to some details here, but this is all I’ve got. Sorry.

What I can do is let you know some of the dishes that were presented at this year’s event. Just like last year, and just as we’re hoping will be the case for years to come, there was a wide variety of bacony goodness inserted into every dish that we ate. Everyone put a lot of time and effort into their concoctions and we had a nice array of food to eat. Here’s a small sampling of what we ate

Bacon wrapped asparagus
Potato soup with bacon
Bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers
Caramel apples with bacon bits instead of nuts
Bacon vodka
Bacon, egg, and cheese strata
Green bean casserole with bacon
Bacon/cream cheese dip with pork rinds for dipping purposes
(There are more, but these are the ones that I am able today)

Beginning last year (which was our inaugural year), Carol decided to pass out awards for not only the best recipe, but also for the most creative. Because I’m so awesome, I won the award for best recipe with my bacon wrapped shrimp covered with raspberry jelly while my buddy Chris won MVP (Most Valuable Pork) with his Bacon Explosion (a delicious concoction of bacon, sausage, and everything else that totally embodies the entire spirit of Cholesterolapalooza). While my strata was not quite the hit that I wanted it to be (not one vote) Chris almost repeated as MVP with his bacon vodka. Unfortunately for him, he was upstaged by none other than his wonderful girlfriend Sarah and her…

Bacon Bourbon Ice Cream

I know, it sounds disgusting. Really, really disgusting. Even with my absolute love of bacon I was turned off at the thought of bacon flavored ice cream. And to make matters worse, it wasn’t even bacon flavored ice cream – there were actually chunks of bacon in there. I’ll let your stomachs sit on that for a bit while I tell you more about the other dishes.

Everything was delicious. I don’t eat asparagus, but in order to give a fair and accurate vote as to the best and most creative dishes I had to try everything (except for the green bean caserole. Sorry Melissa - I don't do caseroles. Ever). As a result I tried the bacon wrapped asparagus, the bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers, and the bacon based dips which I would never normally eat. They were all fantastic. I also ate the potato soup, the green bean casserole, and everything else on the table that had bacon on or in it (which was everything). As I was finishing my last bite of the potato soup, I was having a hard time picking a winner because everything was just so good. Since I wasn’t allowed to vote for my own recipe, I was leaning towards Carol’s dip because a) she’s my wife and she works really hard to get everything ready for the event, b) it was really good, and c) you had to eat it with pork rinds which I love almost as much as I love Lindsay Lohan. I walked inside knowing that even though I had two deserts to try yet (caramel apples and the dreaded bacon bourbon ice cream) I had pretty much made up my mind.

Well, was I in for a surprise.

I did not want to try the ice cream as the thought of bacon chunks in the best frozen dairy product of all time really grossed me out, but I made myself a bowl and was immediately shocked. It was absolutely delicious. I’m not sure if it was the bourbon flavoring or if it was the fact that after a few beers and a shot of the bacon vodka I was pretty accepting of anything, but it was really, really good. I didn’t fully trust it so I took another bite only to find that it was just as delicious as the first. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way as Sarah not only took home the MVP trophy, but she won the top prize of Best Dish as well. Well done, Sarah. Well done.

Other than that, the night was pretty tame. We ate, drank, played euchre, played asshole, threw all of our empty beer cans into our neighbors front yard in response to them parking a Nissan in ours the night before, drove around the block while it was raining at around 1:30am in our neighbors really old and barely working car with no headlights, windshield wipers, or power steering with my head out the window, Chris riding shotgun, and Jeff laying on the hood holding a flashlight so that I could see where we were going (don’t worry about our safety. Jeff was yelling “chugga-chugga-choo-choo!” the entire time so people would be able to hear us coming).

Needless to say, Carol and I had a great time and I hope that next year’s event is an even bigger success. Mark your calendars now for Oct 8, 2010. Cholersterolapalooza III will be bigger and better than ever before!!

Seriously, mark your calendars now. Everyone’s invited. No joke. Just bring a dish with bacon and you’re admitted. We have a numerous places to sleep around the house if you need to crash. Sleeping arrangements will be determined by level of attractiveness, state of inebriation, and ability to keep a secret.

Thanks for reading.