Epidode 1 of The Tasting Queens Road Trip Diaries- Long Island Bacon Festival

WHERE'S THE BACON???

March 15th, a bright sunny but windy day found myself, nephew Rishaun and fellow Tasting Queens bloggers Shannice and Tahrikh bursting with excitement.  It was finally time for the much anticipated Long Island Bacon Festival set to take place in Coram NY.

After working out some car issues, we set off to make the 1 hour and 20 minute trip from Queens to Coram. We put a soca CD in and let our minds run wild at all the possibilities of the day. Bacon. That word just says magic. Smokey, juicy, fatty magic. All hail the pork belly magic. We couldn't wait.

Making it to Coram in good time, found parking on a crowded side street, then onward to the All Star Arena. A steady stream of people were coming from the direction of the venue. It was quite concerning as it was just after 11am and the event was set to begin at 10am. Nevertheless,  we kept trucking. Waiting to cross the super busy intersection,  we met a family who had just left the festival. We asked them why were they leaving so early? The mom then told us that it was a small arena but it was worth it. She told us of a freakishly long line to enter, but that was a small price to pay for what was to come. She spoke of tails of caramel popcorn with bacon bits, of waffles and marshmallows and all manner of goodness. We were again reinvigorated. We moved swiftly now. Then we saw it. The line to end all lines. It snaked it's way around a very large parking lot.  It was hard to even locate the end but we did, and rushed to join. Surprisingly it moved along quite quickly and although there were about 500 people ahead of us, we were indoors within 15 minutes. Hmmm.... that should have been the 3rd clue.

We walked in to a small space.  I would hardly call it an arena. It was the size of a skating rink with turf on the ground and tall metal ceilings. There were tons of people but only about 15 booths. We joined a line at random, knowing that the reward of bacon would be great. After a while on the slowly moving line, we decided to divide and conquer. Joining multiple lines, we promised to procure enough of the spoils to share with the others. Dismay set in as I realized that Tahrikh and I were on a Beef Jerky sample line. Beef Jerky? What in the world? Deciding to forsake our line and take a closer look at the booths themselves, we discovered vendors for everything from Jewelry to new windows and siding.  I almost screamed! Where was it? Where was the bacon? We spent almost $50! Show it to me.....the bacon.....

Shannice and Rishaun found a chocolate vendor who promised samples of chocolate made with bits of bacon. We sampled it and thought it quite delectable.  We bought several bars and looked for more. The next "indulgence" was a neighboring vendor who offered samples of various cheese dips. None with bacon, but they were good. Then we saw it. Our piggy friend found a way to be represented.  Hidden in a corner was a Butcher booth with various kinds of pork offerings. We bought some dried sausages and of course bacon! We chose a super thick cut maple and peppercorn bacon. Mmm.... I couldn't wait to cook it. The only other bacon product was a crumbcake booth that offered a mini coffeecake topped with bacon pieces. It was delicious.

The end.... We'll not quite although it should have been. Our "adventure" lasted all of 40 minutes. Just like the folks we saw earlier, we made a quick sulky exit. Trying to recover from the shock of the Bacon Festival that never was, we were left hungry...angry...disappointed. Did I mention that we were hungry? Intent on having our bacon fix, we made our way to the highly recommended Coram Diner. I'll save you the details of the terrible food, sloppy plating and lacking service and instead show you a photo of what we did with the bacon we bought. We made our version of Nutella pancakes and served it up with crackling maple peppercorn bacon. Yum!

The Long Island Bacon Festival gets a big F for the bacon festival that never was. This was not the way we intended to start off the season of the Tasting Queens Road Trip Diaries.

Recipe for Nutella pancakes on our Facebook page Facebook.com/TastingQueens