Baconation

From the "don't knock it 'til you've tried it" department, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite sandwiches of all time: a toasted poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, scallions and bacon. It isn't exactly a light breakfast - it hits your heart like a mallet - but, um...

I was going to try to defend it, but let's be honest here:
you're topping cream cheese with bacon and furthering the injustice of it by sprinkling it with just enough green, leafy material to highlight how completely insignificant that green, leafy material is considering what it's sitting on top of. This shouldn't be a daily thing, is what I'm saying. It's a treat, a Thursday morning pick-me-up, not a Dunkin Donuts, pulled-up-to-the-drivethru-and-realized-you-don't-know-what-you-want afterthought.

I like sandwiches that dance, and this one's got potential. It's salty, but not crunchy-salty, sweet, but not tongue-smackingly so and just a tiny bit earthy and gently bitter, but still lighter than a classic deli bacon egg and cheese, and much faster to make. Everything in it needs everything else: ham doesn't work, and it has to be a bagel, and incidentally? It tastes better with sweet, creamy tea, not so much with coffee.

Ya can't make a BLT without B

I do not doubt, not for a minute, that this is a tasty sandwich, but co-optings of "BLT" seriously irk me.

I've experimented with improving the BLT, but none of those experiments have ever involved removing the bacon, roasting the tomato or replacing the lettuce with shredded bok choy - I've made my own mayonnaise (no real difference, but you can herb it), I've chilled the tomato in a freezer just before assembly (improves the overall texture), I've bought preservative-free smoked bacon from Vermont at local farmers' markets (truly incredible), I've even baked my own bread (still haven't really got the hang of it) but avocado has never entered into the picture. The tofu has stayed in the closet. Soy may make you strong and crush your enemies, but it ruins a BLT.

I mean, let's face it: in any other circumstance, lettuce and tomato is a garnish - turkey, lettuce and tomato isn't a TLT, it's a friggin' turkey sandwich. Raising another sandwich to a BLT level of perfection without some serious thought is sacrilegious.

A BLT should look something like this:
...or it absolutely doesn't count.

A recipe isn't really necessary, but some pointers never hurt.

• Cook the bacon slowly and flip it often; bacon burns if you don't pay attention to it.
• As I mentioned before, pop your tomato into the freezer before you start cooking the bacon. It will make it easier to slice and bracingly cold to the teeth.
• And speaking of tomatoes, very, very lightly salting the slices can bring out their flavor, but too much salt will leave the bacon with nothing to do.
  
• The lettuce shouldn't be too crunchy; you can avoid that by cutting out its central ribbing and by layering the leaves on top of each other.
• You can compromise making your own mayo by blending regular mayo with herbs and / or garlic. Don't overdo it, though - the bacon should be the star of the show.
• The bread should be light; toasted white or croissants work great.