Kent

I took the month of July off (which I highly recommend)[1], filling it camping, hiking and canoeing. Before the campfire ban kicked in, M and I enjoyed a semi-traditional family "treat" that we hadn't had for a while: sult szalona (pronounced shoolt salona or some such). While it is definitely neither kosher nor heart smart, it is delicious, and so I share it here.

Take a hunk of bacon. Not some of these flimsy slices that sells as bacon, but a hunk. The piece in the pictures is about 250g (~1/2 a pound) of the bacon M smoked herself[2].

Slash up the bacon like it owes you money. Both sides. This will make the later stages more productive.

Stick the bacon on a spike (telling everyone present a delightful story about Vlad Tepes is appropriate about now). We use a spike M's father forged in the fires of Eitri (or maybe just the tractor factory he used to work at).

Hold the bacon over a nice sized fire. Try not to singe it too much (at least initially). At this point, you've got something else in mind.

When the bacon starts to drip, rub it on a piece of thickly-sliced bread that has slices of onion on it. Put it back over the fire before it cools off too much. When the bread is saturated, eat. Make grunting or nom nom sounds while eating. The bread is thick so that it also collects the drool you may produce at this point.

As parts of the bacon become of a desired cookedness (or they stop being productive of drippings). Cut off (preferably with a sabre, although anything sharp and dangerous looking works as well) and place cubes of the bacon (known as 'little soldiers') on the bread you've been nomming. Eat with more vocalizations.

After eating, it's highly recommended you burn off a few calories. OK, lots of them. However, be careful, as you may have more than a few heart attacks after a bit of this. I know I had three just while we were eating.

As for a matching beverage, probably a hearty red wine (pun fully intended), or palinka (Hungarian fire water).

I can't imagine why Hungary scores so well on the heart index...

[1] I know much of the work in our industry is still just plain fun (solving problems, even writing code can be great fun and creative). Still, no one plays for the full 60 minutes [3] and you really should find time to take a break, enjoy being with family/friends and leave work behind once and a while. Every time I hear someone brag, "It's been three years since my last vacation", I feel like slapping them. It's definitely not something to be proud of.

[2] No, we do not use "Canadian bacon" (really back bacon). It's just too lean for this, but I do really like it otherwise.

[3] Insert some other analogous sports analogy here if you're not from Canada.