Column: Baking Bacon

I've not met many people that don't love bacon.

I try not to judge the people that don't consider it a delicacy, but quite possibly in the back of my mind they might be spies or up to some sort of shenanigans.

As good as bacon is, cooking it in a frying pan can be a disaster and even painful.

A few years ago, a friend of mine told me he would never cook bacon in a pan anymore. He just throws it in the oven.

My mind was blown. Why didn't I think of this sooner? I would no longer need to wear welding equipment to cook breakfast. After careful examination I realized that this was not my first experience baking bacon. I used to do it at my first job when I was 14. I worked at a Wendy's and had completely forgot about it. Or perhaps I had blocked it out because I hated working at that place with a passion so fierce I still have nightmares.

After that special moment I learned again the joys of cooking bacon in the oven, I never went back to the frying pan. My relationship with oven bacon was great until the other day. Things started to change on Super Bowl Sunday when I was cooking some bacon to put in a side dish. In a rush to get the bacon cooked, I put too much on the cookie sheet. Looking back, I probably should have cooked it in two batches, but I wanted to get this done so I could watch the game.

About 20 minutes into the baking process, the grease from the bacon started to fall from the foil and cookie sheet to the bottom of the oven. We did our best to rearrange the bacon and clean up the mess, but didn't get all of it.

The oven even got a good cleaning a few days later, but some of the grease had ended up in a bad spot.

The next time the oven got turned on to cook a pizza -- it was pure chaos.

I was in the basement watching true crime like normal (no I'm not planning an elaborate murder, but I wouldn't tell you if I was) and I started hearing "Jack, Jack come up here."

I quickly smelled why they were calling me.

I'm not quite sure everyone thought my expertise would help in the matter. I think sometime when people are in a stressful situation, the easiest thing to do is to yell at the person furthest away from them.

The grease had started to burn in the oven and it was a nice little fireworks show for a minute, but was quickly remedied. It smelled bad for a few minutes, I was annoyed I missed my show, the cat was nervous, but all in all it turned out not that big of a deal.

Despite the stinky smell and having to give the oven a good cleaning, it won't deter me from using the oven for bacon again.

I do however wonder what kind of traumatic experiences happened to me at Wendy's pretty much that entire summer from my mind.