I just cooked something naughty and entirely non-Californian. In preparation for my pending field trip to rural Georgia on the 2nd of February, I felt the need to make a connection, however feeble, to the culinary south. I made corn bread.

Let me clarify:

I made bacon infused cornbread in a cast iron skillet. I started with 6 strips of smoked bacon in the skillet and cooked them until slightly crispy. I removed the bacon, cut it into bits, and put it in the batter. Then comes the fun. You pour the cold bacon-batter into the hot bacon grease in the skillet and then bake it in the oven which has been preheated to a toasty 425.

My instinct to pour out half of the bacon grease into the trash before pouring in the batter was admittedly short-sighted. I should have left it all in there. The perfect bottom I was hoping for was a little short of what it could have been. It tasted like bacon, it smelled like bacon, but it wasn't as crispy like I thought it should be. In fact, it was light, airy and moist, just slightly crisp.

Now the house smells like bacon. Life is good on Bateman Street.

What have you been cooking in bacon grease?