Death of a Bacon Heiress

Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell

The other night after getting off the phone with my mother from our biweekly phone call, I got an incredible urge for a Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin. Craving meat after speaking with my mother is a Pavlovian response from childhood. When my brother and I were kids, our mother’s idea of meat was a veggie dog or tofu brushed in BBQ sauce and browned on the grill. And everyone knows when you deprive a child of any food their friends are allowed to eat on a regular basis, they just want it more!

When I was around twelve years old I was suddenly introduced to the wonderful world of pork.

My mother worked one week a month at the local retirement community village where she was in charge of collecting the residents’ monthly rent. This was a job she absolutely loved and took very seriously. She was very proud of her 100 percent rent collection record each month.

She would actually prepare a plan of attack and approached her task with a military-like precision and an enthusiasm that I didn’t quite understand at such a young age. She seemed to enjoy taking me along with her. It was only later that I realized she had ulterior motives.

Sometimes she would sit me down in the common room. The nice elderly people were so happy to see a lively young child because I reminded them of their own grandchildren. They would always come up and speak to me. Then my mother would suddenly appear out of nowhere right in front of the poor old soul, startling them, with her hand out, unblinking, and request their monthly rent check. Her intended target would begin stammering an excuse about how she had left her wallet in her apartment. That didn’t deter my mother. She just placed an arm around her prey and headed her in the direction of her apartment, stuck to her side the whole way.

On a few occasions she would even have me wear my Girl Scout uniform and place me in front of an unsuspecting resident’s door as if I was selling cookies, and then she would rap sharply on the door and hang back by the wall. Once the poor senior looked out of his peephole and just saw an adorable young girl in her scout uniform presumably selling cookies, he would then walk right into my mother’s ingenious trap. He would open the door and my mother would pounce, like a cat on a mouse. She would casually slip her foot in far enough so the door couldn’t be closed and, with a bright smile on her face, say something like, “Mr. Foster, I’m so glad I caught you at home. Would you like to pay your rent?”

What does all this have to do with pork? Well, even though I felt bad being a pawn in my mother’s scheme to hold on to her perfect rent collection record, I did find a beacon of shining light at this facility, and it was in the form of the residents’ dining hall.

One day after helping my mother catch yet another victim, she sent me off to the residents’ dining hall to get a bite to eat, and let me tell you, I never looked back.

It was a beautiful place filled with every imaginable delectable meat dish my young mind could conjure up, and I set out to try every last one of them while my mother was busy working her stealth maneuvers to track down every last senior who owed her money.

It was heaven!

One dish I couldn’t get enough of was the Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin. It was divine! And in my young mind, this mouthwatering treat ran circles around my mother’s bland, chewy tofu dogs.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and for my mother and me they did rather quickly after one particular incident that may have been over the top even for my mother.

One day at work with my mother, I was just leaving the dining room after gorging on yet another meal of Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin when I heard yelling coming from the residents’ common room. I dashed off to see what was going on, arriving in time to see an unconscious woman being wheeled away on a gurney by the EMTs after suffering some kind of malady. My mother, who had apparently jumped up on the gurney and was practically on top of the poor woman, reached into her purse, all the while yelling to all of the stunned residents and staff who were frozen in place, that she knew poor Mrs. Clark would be horrified if her rent had been late while she was in the hospital, and how she wanted to relieve her mind knowing her bills had been paid on time.

That was the end of my mother’s job as the rent collector at the senior retirement village. It also meant the end of my meat-eating days in the dining hall. But it was too late to go back to fake meat. I was a goner. And after teaming up with my brother, we staged a revolt. My mother finally gave in and we were officially a family of carnivores.

But that is another story.

So in salute of my happy meat-eating youthful memories, I’m sharing one of my favorite recipes, Easy Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin. I’m also including my mother’s favorite cocktail—a Gin Fizz that she always drank as a reward for a job well done after collecting all those rent checks.

Gin Fizz

Ingredients
3 ounces of your favorite gin
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Ice
Seltzer

Add the first four ingredients to a shaker and mix together, then pour into a tall glass. Top with seltzer water and cheers!

Easy Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients
1 pork tenderloin, 1½ pound
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Pinch of cayenne (more or less to your taste)
6 slices your favorite bacon (or enough to completely wrap)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¼ cup mango chutney (or your favorite flavor)
2 tablespoons whole grain mustard

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Open the pork loin and make sure you pat it dry; set aside on a cutting board or platter.

Combine the brown sugar, salt, paprika, cayenne in small bowl, then rub the mixture all over the pork tenderloin.

Wrap the bacon around the tenderloin, securing with toothpicks.

Heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat until hot in a large cast iron pan and place the bacon-wrapped tenderloin in the pan and sear. Do not try turning to the other side until bacon is nice and dark brown. Cook each side for at least 6 to 8 minutes.

Mix the chutney and mustard in a small bowl and when bacon is done, generously brush the mixture on the top and sides of the tenderloin in the skillet, then transfer the skillet to the oven for about 15 minutes or when a thermometer reads 140 F. Remove from oven, tent with foil, and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove the toothpicks, slice, and eat up!

Note: We like using the leftover chutney in the jar as a dipping sauce.