National Pig Day, plus Mr. Bubbles

Yesterday, March 1, was National Pig Day, it seems. Silly me–I thought that meant pork, so I ordered a BLT at the Time Inc caf (taking petty pleasure in saying “EXTRA MAYO, please!” right next to the woman who’d just order the Lite Tuna on wheat). But then I did a little googling, and it looks like they mean real, live pigs are to be celebrated on National Pig Day. I read about how smart and sensitive and cute they are. And I’m still hungry for bacon.

Which reminds me, the current issue of Saveur has an article titled something like “The Best Food in the World.” About bacon, of course. Recipes for bacon tempura, for bacon covered with brown sugar, you name it. The eds characterize bacon as “savior of sluggish breakfasts, benefactor of the midday meal [mmm, BLTs], daring animator of the dinner table….Mocker of diets, tempter of vegetarians,…furtive lagniappe for the cook savvy to have cooked a bit more of it than he or she, strictly speaking, needs.” Indeed.

In other great news, I got my first delivery from Mr. Bubbles, the last remaining seltzer delivery man in NYC. Yes, at $20 for 10 26 oz. bottles, plus tip to the guy who lugs the 70-pound crate up the stairs, it’s kind of an indulgence. Especially because I’m hardly at home any more. But I want there to be fizzy water there when I am there, right?

So, Walter is everything you could hope for in a seltzer delivery guy (no leering, people–it’s just water!)–he’s kinda burly, he’s really into what he does, he has a Bronx-y accent, and he starts telling you tales about all his other customers. Like the mid-80s Italian couple around the corner who have a huge garden, and the guy makes his own grappa. And the managing editor of Time magazine. And all the other food writers around the city. I feel like I’ve been initiated into some secret club. Made all the more secretive by the fact that Walter has a habit of saying, “…if you get what I’m saying” after almost every sentence, so that everything he says sounds like some cryptic double entendre that I should be picking up on. Ohhhh. Right. Fizzy water.

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