the pressure.  gee-willikers!  you simply cannot browse through any social media platform without seeing family’s and friends’ beautifully-prepared foods or rustic breads fresh out of the oven, off the grill, sizzling on the griddle, staged and plated for photos.

the pressure.  my first question is always one about wondering how, in the middle of this socially-distanced-stay-at-home-pandemic, all-these-people have all-those-ingredients in their homes at-the-ready.  we must be pretty basic shoppers; our larders are not filled with the likes of these ingredients.  we plan ahead; like you, we are shopping very rarely, limiting our exposure.  we miss our peeps at festival; we used to see them almost daily, as we would cruise about town to get fresh fruits and veggies.

the pressure.  neither of us wanted to go out to the store the other day.  we had chicken out to prepare, but, low on or depleted of fresh vegetables and potatoes, a side dish escaped us.  we did, however, have a multitude of pears, because you can’t purchase a normal amount of pears at costco; instead, it is assumed you have an army of pear-eaters and you will all devour them before the dreaded brown spots form on the outside of its smooth green-pear-skin.

the pressure.  what to do with pears, other than just, say, slice and eat them.  we googled.  every pear recipe has goat cheese in it, for good reason.  i love goat cheese and wish we could eat goat cheese, but a dairy free diet precludes that.  so we had to move on.

knowing that you must be sitting on the edge of your seat as you (maybe) read this, i’ll tell you what happened:  we looked in the freezer to see what else was there.  bacon!  now, i really love bacon.  i probably shouldn’t, but i do.  thinking we were being brilliant, we googled what you could make with pears and bacon.  those of you out there in perfect cooking/baking/inspired feasting social media land will say ‘no duh’ when i tell you we found -drumroll, please- bacon-wrapped pears!  simple!  you slice a pear into quarters and wrap bacon around the slices.  place in 400 degree oven and bake.  that’s it!  they were freaking amazing!

the pressure.  so then the pressure was to NOT post this pear-bacon-pairing-extravaganza on social media.  we sent a picture to a couple friends who knew of our facebook-meal-snack-drink ogling and we sent a picture to The Girl and The Boy.

our friends responded enthusiastically but our more recipe-savvy children did not.  i suppose they just thought to themselves:  yup.  pears.  bacon.  pears + bacon = bacon-wrapped pears.  yup.  the pressure.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY