Month: January 2023

Welcome to SNX DLX, your weekly roundup of the best sneakers to hit the internet. Things are starting to heat up in the sneaker world as we get our first big-name collaboration of the year and no, it’s not from Nike. In fact, Nike is playing things frustratingly safe and we’d be mad about it if other big brands weren’t picking up the slack.

The big release this week comes out of Adidas who have teamed up with Beyonce for the latest IVY PARK release, the nostalgic Top Ten 2000. The Y2K era has a stranglehold on the world of fashion right now so if you’re all about that retro aesthetic, you’re going to find a lot to love in this new collaboration. With Ye a thing of the past when it comes to conversations about hot footwear, Adidas is still going strong thanks to linking up with Beyonce, you know, one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, as well as Bad Bunny, the literal biggest pop start on the planet. So if you’re worried about the three stripes brand, don’t be, they’re in great company.

Elsewhere, our favorite Chicago designer, Joe Freshgoods, is teaming up with Vans for a radical platform Sk8-Hi that shows the designer pushing the envelope at a brand that loves to play it safe.

Nike Dunk Low Montreal Bagel

A bagel-inspired Dunk? Sure, why the hell not? It’s not like we’ve never loved Dunks inspired by food before (The Chunky Dunk comes to mind) so sure, slap some sesame seed graphics on the leather paneling and call it a day, we’ll take it!

This low-top Dunk features shades of beige with a contrasting Montreal blue swoosh and heel tab over a classic gum sole. Nike is phoning it in for sure, but they’re keeping things fun.

The Nike Dunk Low Montreal Bagel is out now for a retail price of $120. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Air Force 1 x Slam Jam Black and Off Noir

A classic silhouette meets classic Italian construction, this Air Force 1 was made in collaboration with Slam Jam and sports a softened premium leather upper with suede detailing (peep that Swoosh), an upside-down Nike Air logo, and Slam Jam branding at the toe, all dressed up in a stealthy triple black colorway.

It’s simply a dope-looking AF-1 made by one of the most renowned streetwear boutiques. A winning combination.

The Air Force 1 x Slam Jam Black and Off Noir is out now for a retail price of $180. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Nike Air Penny 2 Black and Faded Spruce

Penny Hardaway fans stay winning! Ever since Nike brought back the Air Penny 2, the design has gotten all sorts of dope new colorways including this week’s Black and Faded Spruce.

Featuring a leather upper with a mix of black and green colors, the Air Penny 2 sports a sculpted foam midsole in Sail, with a visible air unit, and that swirling design that makes the Penny such an attractive and unique silhouette.

The Nike Air Penny 2 Black and Faded Spruce is set to drop on January 20th at 7:00 Am PST for a retail price of $200. Pick up a pair via the Nike SNKRS app.

Joe Freshgoods x Vans Sk8-Hi Reissue Platform VLT LX/Slip-Hiker LX

Joe Freshgoods’ latest Vans collaboration is all about celebrating the Black travel experience. Dubbed the Chocolate Valley Resort collection, this sneaker and apparel drop features a Midwestern log-cabin aesthetic with warm and earthy colorways.

The sneakers featured in the collection include the Sk8-Hi Reissue Platform VLT LX and the Slip-Hiker LX. The former features a coral almond and camel colorway with the latter sporting a quilted nylon upper with an all-weather MTE outsole. It’s a dope and thoughtful collection and the best Vans has looked in a while.

The Joe Freshgoods Vans Sk8-Hi Reissue Platform VLT LX and Slip Hiker LX are set to drop on January 21st for an unannounced retail price. Pick up a pair at the Vans or Joe Freshgoods web stores.

Adidas Sean Wotherspoon Orketro

Sean Wotherspoon is putting his loud and busy touch on a forgotten Adidas silhouette. The Orketro doesn’t get a lot of love, but Wotherspoon has given it a new and vibrant look while still putting sustainability at the forefront.

Made from repurposed materials, this Orketro combines 2000s design details with Adiprene+ cushioning, a bright pink, white, orange, and blue colorway, and an angular three stripes repositioning that makes the sneaker look brand new.

The Adidas Sean Wotherspoon Orketro is set to drop on January 19th at 7:30 AM PST for a retail price of $160. Pick up a pair via the ADIDAS Confirmed App.

Adidas IVY Park Top Ten 2000

If you’ve been following fashion, you know that the y2k aesthetic is back. Feel however you want about that, if you’re over the age of 30 you probably either hate or are confused by it. Get over it, it’s back and it’s not going away. How do we know for sure? Because even Beyonce is into it. Are you saying your taste is better than Beyonce’s? Get real.

The Top Ten is a classic 00’s era Adidas silhouette, and Beyonce is giving it the Ivy Park treatment with a slight reimagining/ Featuring a mesh, nubuck and suede upper, this Top Ten sports a form-fitting neoprene collar, a molded heel piece, and a Cream White and Pulse Mint colorway that recalls Bey’s very first Ivy Park drop.

The Adidas IVY Park Top Ten 200 is set to drop on January 20th at 7:30 Am PST for a retail price of $200. Pick up a pair via the Adidas CONFIRMED app.

Earlier this month, BMF made its return for season two after being off the air for a little over a year. The show follows the rise of Demetrius “Meech” Flenory, Terry “Southwest T” Flenory, and their Black Mafia Family drug organization. The first season of BMF followed the Flenory brothers’ early days in Detroit while season two details their efforts to expand as well as the highs and lows that come with it. While we’ll certainly have to wait a bit to see what’s in store for season three, we now know that there will indeed be a season three of BMF.

STARZ announced today that BMF will indeed see a third season, and the news comes just two weeks into the show’s second season. “BMF captures the essence of Detroit through elevated, gritty storytelling and our fans have passionately responded to this show more than ever before,” STARZ’s President of Original Programming Kathryn Busby said in a press release. “Following such a strong debut with season two, we’re thrilled to continue to expand on the incredible story of the Flenory brothers as they change the game by writing their own rules. We can’t wait to see what our extraordinary producers and cast deliver next.”

In addition to the season three renewal, BMF was also ranked as the #1 most socially engaged drama across all networks over its premiere weekend (January 6-8) according to Talkwalker’s SCR.

Make sure to check out our season two, episode two recap of BMF here.

New episodes of ‘BMF’ are available on the STARZ app on Fridays at 12:00 am EST and on the STARZ TV channel at 8:00 pm EST.

Stephen A. Smith might be a loudmouth with occasionally boneheaded opinions but he’s no fool. Just hours after risking the ire of two of music’s biggest fan bases, he’s already walking back his comments negatively comparing Rihanna to Beyoncé. In a video posted on his Twitter account, Stephen A. apologized to Rihanna and admitted that “I need to be more careful” in the future.

“I’m gonna own it,” he said, before tossing a little shade at the outlets that highlighted his faux pas. “I know what y’all trying to do. But I’m gonna own it because I get paid to speak for a living so I need to be more careful.” He then turned his attention to clearing the air with Rihanna, saying, “I want Rihanna to know: You’re a superstar. You’re sensational. You’re spectacular. You’re no joke, and you’re a worthy person to be doing the Super Bowl Halftime Show.”

He also elaborated on what he meant by “she ain’t Beyoncé.” “I’m a Beyoncé fan,” he explained. “I think Beyoncé is not only a phenomenal performer; she’s thee phenomenal performer. The only reason any kind of comparison came into play is because Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl… and I thought those were two of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. Anybody has to measure up to that.”

He also pointed out that he compared last year’s Dr. Dre performance with Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Mary J. Blige to Beyoncé’s before going full Stephen A. and asserting that even a Michael Jackson reprise would have to measure up to her and… well. It’s Stephen A. Smith. You couldn’t have been expecting a totally contrite response.

Smith made sure to show love to both Bey and Rih before saying he wished no disrespect to either, encouraging Rihanna to “do your thing.”

A class-action lawsuit against Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks may end up featuring Rob Gronkowski as a defendant. According to The Athletic, Gronkowski’s work as a brand ambassador for Voyager Digital, a cryptocurrency lender in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings, could potentially lead to him being pulled in alongside Cuban and the Mavs, which were both sued for their decision to promote the company.

Gronkowski was subpoenaed last month, per court documents, and an email indicated that brand ambassadors for Voyager could be pulled into the lawsuit.

Via The Athletic:

“We have set the depositions of Rob Gronkowski,” Adam Moskowitz, the plaintiffs’ attorney, wrote in the email.

Asked if the retired tight end is likely to be a defendant, Moskowitz wrote to The Athletic, “He is not a named defendant yet, but the court gave us until Feb. 24 to file an amended complaint against Voyager (such as adding defendants, claims and plaintiffs), we know he was a ‘Brand Ambassador’ for Voyager who ‘promoted’ the unsecured securities (the ‘interest accounts’). We served him with a third-party subpoena, and we have named all of the FTX ‘Brand Ambassadors’ in our pending federal class action.”

Gronkowski, Cuban, and the Mavs are far from the only big names (in the world of sports and culture at large) to get pulled into crypto-related lawsuits. As The Athletic article details, those efforts may have a tough road ahead due to previous rulings. If nothing else, though, it’s easy to imagine that being linked to these lawsuits may give celebrity endorsers cause to think twice before jumping onto the next bandwagon.

Could Rui Hachimura be one of the names that gets moved before the NBA trade deadline next month? According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Washington Wizards are holding conversations with opposing teams about finding a new home for the No. 9 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.

As Charania reports, there are teams in the Western Conference that would be interested in acquiring Hachimura and his ability to provide a scoring punch. He is not the only wing who has apparently drawn interest on Washington’s roster, as teams would like to acquire the services of Kyle Kuzma. But apparently, the Wizards would like to keep Kuzma around beyond this year.

Whether to trade Hachimura and Kuzma is among the difficult decisions the Wizards have to make as the trade deadline approaches on Feb. 9. Kuzma will not sign an extension and has a $13 million player option for next season that he expects to decline. Team officials value Kuzma highly and would like to re-sign him over the summer. If the Wizards trade Hachimura, it could signal that team officials are confident they will be able to retain Kuzma.

Hachimura is slated to become a restricted free agent at the conclusion of the 2022-23 season. All 28 of the former Gonzaga standout’s appearances for the team this season have come off of the bench, and he’s averaging 12.9 points in 24.2 minutes per game while connecting on 49.2 percent of his attempts from the field.

Romeo Santos is going to be a father again. In his romantic music video for “Solo Conmigo” that was released last night (January 17), the Dominican-American superstar revealed that his longtime girlfriend is pregnant.

On January 9, Santos generated controversy online with the first tease of the “Solo Conmigo” video. In the brief clip, he was shown singing the sexy bachata track in between a woman’s legs. Before releasing the full video yesterday, Santos appeared to responded to the fuss in an Instagram post.

“With my art, you’ll find yourself entertained, you’ll identify with it, you’re inspired by it, or you’re offended by it,” Santos wrote in Spanish.

The video for “Solo Conmigo” ended up being NSFW as people expected, but also very beautiful with the appearance of Santos’ pregnant girlfriend. Like that maneuver of Santos spreading his girlfriend’s legs from the teaser, they’re shown making passionate love together. At the end of the video, Santos gives his girlfriend’s baby bump a kiss. This marked the first time that his girlfriend appeared in one of his videos.

The baby on the way will be Santos’ third child with his girlfriend. He is a father to his three sons: Alex Damian, Valentino, and Solano. “Solo Conmigo” is the latest single from Santos’ Formula, Vol. 3 that was released in September. The LP included his bachata-bending collaborations “Sin Fin” with Justin Timberlake and “El Pañuelo” featuring Rosalía.

Following Greta Thunberg’s arrest at a coal mine protest on Tuesday, conspiracy theories started rapidly speculating online that the whole thing was “staged.” The German police who arrested the climate activist would like you to, kindly, knock it off.

While Thunberg is a noted public figure, who recently garnered headlines thanks to her brutal takedown of alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, the officers involved in her detainment want to make it clear that she received no special treatment. Granted, in the arrest video, Thunberg can be seen smiling while being physically carried away and posing for photos next to the officer, but there’s a simple explanation.

First of all, Thunberg did not resist arrest and the German officers were mostly concerned for her safety. Thunberg and other activists were detained for wandering too close to the sharp cliff of the mine. As for her standing around and posing for photos, officers were simply waiting for a car to arrive to take her away from the site. More importantly, the police were allowing journalists free reign of the protest. Via BBC News:

Christian Wernicke, a journalist from German news outlet Süddeutsche Zeitung who was there at the time, said the police officers “were deciding how they would proceed with the identity check and waiting to take Greta to the police vehicle.”

“My impression was that there was confusion. Greta was not the first protester who had been taken away from the sit-in,” Mr Wernicke added.

Wernicke also confirmed the German police’s assertions that the whole thing was actually very “mundane.”

“I’ve seen different reactions to the video,” Wernicke told the BBC. “Some say that the footage looks like the police are setting her up to embarrass her and others say that it is all part of some propaganda. People are interpreting and using this footage for their own motives.”

(Via BBC News)

For anyone expecting an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist on MILF Manor, first off, why? But also, there wasn’t one: the “shocking” twist was what everyone thought it would be.

On the series premiere of the TLC reality series, eight non-Jennifer Coolidge MILFs looking for eligible bachelors discover that the titular manor has also been reserved for their sons. Move over, House of the Dragon. “That’s my mom right there,” a not-MILF says in the clip above, while another asks in Spanish, “Mama, what are you doing here?”

I’m always asking why my mom is on the same MILF reality show as me, too.

“I’m very open with my kids and we have an amazing, empowering dynamic family of pure love and support for one another. Only positive vibes in my tribe!” one of the moms told People when asked if there were any “uncomfortable” moments while filming the show. Her son agreed. “I know what my mom is like so I wasn’t surprised by anything she did,” he said. “But it was funny seeing everyone else having to learn what my mom is like and get used to it. They learned quickly.” This is what Fox News is outraged by.

Anyway, the 30 Rock-esque twist may have been obvious, but it’s still hilarious.

(Via People)

Russia’s failure of an ongoing invasion on Ukraine continued to be bloody throughout Orthodox Christmas, given that Putin declared a ceasefire and then launched strikes anyway. Ukraine is keeping their message of vigilance and hope alive, and part of that mission included sending a Miss Universe delegate, Viktoriia Apanasenko, to New Orleans for the annual competition.

The Daily Beast dug into Ukraine’s preparations that ran a full eight months in the costuming department. Apanasenko wore black for an evening wear segment as well as a white, winged “angel” dress.

Even her swimsuit stayed on theme when she unfurled a “Be Brave Like Ukraine” cape. Miss Universe Ukraine branch director Anna Filimonova told The Daily Beast that they “learned about Miss Russia’s participation only one week before the competition, so we had two options: not to take part in the competition, or to go to the United States and carry our important message, our angel.”

Whereas Russia dressed their delegate, Anna Linnikova, in multiple red costumes.

Apanasenko declared this event to be “painful,” given that she attended while Russian shelling continued in her nation. She also disapproved of the chosen color from Russia:

“I am more than grateful to Miss Universe for their support, but I am not sure the organizers understood what it felt like for me to be standing and smiling on the same stage with Miss Russia who was wearing a red dress, the color of blood,” Apanasenko told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Putin is still insisting that he’s on a sure path to winning his war while claiming victories that Kyiv says didn’t happen. His soldiers loathe this conflict so much that they’re drunkenly shooting each other, so Miss Ukraine makes more than a fair point (regarding tragedy on both sides) about blood-red costuming at the Miss Universe pageant.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Sometimes I feel like it would be a lot easier to enjoy bacon without the internet trying to fetishize it. I don’t know who’s to blame for this, maybe Ron Swanson? He seems like one of those outdated memes Facebook uncles can’t let go of, like Chuck Norris and “winning!”

Anyway, bacon has its place. I like bacon too, just please calm down (and maybe get some exercise). In fact, I would go so far as to say that one salient bacon law too often glossed over in the internet’s bacon hagiography is that how good it is really depends on how it’s cooked. I’ve had at least as much bad bacon as I’ve had good (not to mention bacon unnecessarily shoehorned into dishes that didn’t benefit from it). I would even go far as to say that American bacon* has the highest ceiling and lowest floor of all bacon subcategories.

Good bacon is magical; bad bacon is garbage. (*as opposed to Canadian or back bacon, cut from the loin; or British rashers and Australian middle bacon, which have both belly and loin).

Certainly, the way you prefer your bacon is a personal preference, not to mention a cultural one. I remember going to a Subway in Russia in the late aughts, and after ordering a sandwich with bacon on it, watching the sandwich maker just put white, ungrilled, streaky bacon on there like it was prosciutto or something. Most American bacon is cured and smoked, so depending on the type it might be possible to eat “raw,” but I was too squeamish for that and picked it off. (For the record, the friends I was with ate theirs and they were fine).

Anyway anyway, the obvious question with streaky American bacon isn’t so much whether to cook it (yes), but how. In a pan? In the oven? On a grill? What’s the best way? I tried to compile every method I’ve heard of and compare them, as best I could, head to head.

PART I — The Method

Here are the cooking methods I used:

• Dry Pan
• Pan With Oil
• Pan With Water
• Baked On Parchment Paper
• Baked On A Rack
• Microwaved
• Sous Vide
• Grilled Over Open Flame

This was almost everything I could think of, short of deep frying (I didn’t feel like wasting a quart of oil on a few strips of bacon) and the air fryer. I didn’t include the air fryer method for a few very simple reasons: firstly, I don’t own an air fryer. Secondly, I’ve seen an air fryer, and what’s the most bacon one could even conceivably fit in in an air fryer? Two, maybe three strips of bacon? That seems like an extremely narrow use case. Besides, if you’re the type of person who swears by making two pieces of bacon at a time in your air fryer, I doubt anything I say here would convince you otherwise. In fact, I imagine you’re only reading this insofar as it validates your choice in buying an air fryer.

So to those people, I say: Great job buying an air fryer! You are seen.

For this test, I used regular-cut bacon. It seemed a bit much to try every cooking method with both thin and regular cut. And then what was I going to do, have two separate rankings for each? I probably would say I prefer the thick cut kind, but every grocery store I’ve ever been to seems to have five times as much regular cut as thick cut, leading me to assume that regular cut is more popular (me calling it “regular cut” is another clue). For the most part, I don’t think they cook up that much differently.

I used Farmer John brand reduced-sodium bacon, because my grandfather used to drive a Farmer John truck, and because I actually like less-salty bacon (I’ve bought a lot of salt-bomb bacon that I ended up throwing out lately). Anyway, it seemed like a fairly standard, middle-of-the-road grocery store brand bacon that made sense as a control group.

For most of the cooking methods, if it seemed right I went with the first cook. If something seemed off or improvable, I tried it again. I detailed those below.

PART II — The Ranking

9. Pan With Vegetable Oil

For most of my life, I cooked bacon in a dry pan. But after I discovered how good hot dogs were cooked in a little oil in a pan, I figured the same method was worth a shot with bacon. For the first run, I just grabbed a bottle of “vegetable oil.”

Time: 11 minutes.

Original Notes

Nice even cook, though darker. Lots of curling. The texture is nice, though pretty similar to a dry pan. The main issue is that I can taste all that vegetable oil, and it’s pretty gross. Much, much worse than I expected. The bacon is distinctly redolent of soy beans (which is what “vegetable oil” is generally made from) and it’s an unexpectedly terrible combo. The texture is great, but the taste is by far the worst of any other method. Of course, I could probably solve that by using lard or maybe even just a different type of oil… which is why I’m going to retest this method that way.

Bottom Line

I knew the type of oil would have some effect on the outcome, but not this much. The cook was even but the flavor was terrible. Not just side by side, everyone at the table would notice if you did it this way. My main takeaway here: keep vegetable oil away from your bacon.

8. Sous Vide

So this one probably requires some explanation:

I have a sous vide machine (water circulator); I have bacon. It honestly never occurred to me to use said sous vide (water circulator) to cook said bacon. That suggestion came from Uproxx Life food and whiskey maestro Zach Johnston, who suggested “Leave it in the original package. 147 degrees (Fahrenheit) overnight then one side on the grill.”

Seems wildly elaborate for bacon, but hey, we’re trying to test out all methods here, right?

Time: 24 hours, plus about 7-8 minutes on the grill.

Original Notes:

Light in color, the lightest of the group. The fat looks well rendered and very evenly cooked overall. Relatively flat. Putting it my mouth… the taste is too crumbly for me. It’s insubstantial and kind of crumbles all away. The second strip I picked up actually broke in half when I picked it up. Great for bacon bits but not for breakfast.

Bottom Line:

There was some trial and error to this one. I took a second crack at grilling the sous-vided bacon and found that if I pulled it when it was only just started to brown, it was less crumbly, but also a little less crunchy/rendered. The pre-rendering process definitely makes the pan cook go faster, but not that much faster, and doesn’t solve the crowded-pan problem.

After I grilled the three or four slices from the pack for this test, I put the rest of sous-vided pack back in the refrigerator. If I could pre-render with a water bath and then shorten the cook time the next time I wanted to grill it, I could see that being an upside. Trouble with that was, after I refrigerated them, I couldn’t get the strips back out of the package in one strip. They just tore into little pieces. Maybe if I had drained all the liquid fat from the package as soon as I pulled it it might’ve worked? I don’t know.

Seemed far more trouble than it was worth at that point.

Keni Lopez-Alt over at SeriousEats (where he apparently heard about it from someone else…) broke down this method, but noted “you want to do this with thick-cut bacon,” which makes a lot of sense. Regular-cut bacon is just too flimsy for this.

7. Microwave

I couldn’t not include microwave among the cooking methods. While the microwave mostly earns its reputation as a gross way to cook things (most people I know use it strictly for reheating these days), bacon is one thing microwaves actually do relatively well. If you’ve ever had a breakfast sandwich from coffee shop, you’ve probably already had microwaved bacon. Having worked at a deli, I’ve probably microwaved thousands of bacon strips in my life (you think your deli is griddle-cooking that bacon for your sandwich every morning? extremely doubtful). Even with that life experience, even I forget that you can microwave bacon at home.

Now that you know you can, presumably the bigger question is, should you?

Time: 90 seconds.

Original Notes:

Super curly, and the bacon seems to have shrunk the most of any method. The color is actually nice though, more golden. Texturally it’s the toughest, the *hardest* as opposed to the crunchiest. You know what though? Still pretty good. The fat is nicely rendered, but there are a few meat parts that are hammered to the point that they’re pretty stale tasting.

The main downside of the microwave method is that while it does give you nice rendered crunchy fat insanely fast, in order to get that you tend to have to overcook the meat parts.

Bottom Line:

The microwave is, obviously, extremely fast, and as you can see from the picture, it actually looks mostly like any other cooking method. As for the taste… it’s not terrible, but certainly flawed. It renders the fat beautifully but hammers the lean bits in the process. If you were making an elaborate breakfast and didn’t have stove or oven space to cook the bacon, and needed it timed out just right, and the bacon you were using was particularly fatty, I could see going microwave. I think you could probably fool your guests with this.

But under most circumstances I don’t know why you’d want to.

6. Pan With A Water Bath

This one too probably requires a little explanation too. Having watched Jacques Pepin religiously, I’ve seen him suggest, on multiple occasions, to speed up the rendering of any sauce that starts with bacon or pancetta, by covering the meat with a little water and bringing the water to a boil. That way, so the theory goes, the boiling water starts the rendering, then the water boils off, leaving just the hot fat that then finishes cooking the bacon.

I thought, if it works for smaller pieces of bacon or chicharrones or pancetta, why not whole strips of bacon?

Time: 26 minutes.

Original Notes:

The main visible difference here is that it’s distinctly lighter in color than the other methods. Curling is slightly less than with oil pan. In my mouth, texturally this is a lot closer to the baked bacon, with melty fat and meat that isn’t as hard as the other pan methods. The salt level is also distinctly lower, not surprisingly, though that isn’t actually a bad thing with bacon.

Bottom Line:

The big surprise here was how much the water bath actually slowed down the cooking, when I thought it was sort of supposed to do the opposite. Sorry, Jacques? Maybe I did something wrong. The main upside here was the lighter color, with lean parts that were superior to the other pan methods. Of course, it taking so long to achieve this effect really undercut that advantage.

Since I was using lower-sodium bacon for this test, the water actually made it kind of bland, though I could see that being a bonus with saltier bacon. For the most part, though I can’t really see much point in using this one for your average bacon sesh.

5. Oil Pan (Peanut Oil and/or Lard)

I really only tested these methods because the vegetable oil tasted so bad. For one pan I used peanut oil instead of vegetable, and in another I used a bunch of bacon fat accumulated from the other methods.

Time: 11 minutes.

Bottom Line:

These tasted like normal bacon, and I couldn’t really distinguish between them, suggesting that it was the vegetable oil that was the outlier. The cook was maybe ever-so-slightly more even than with the dry pan method (which would turn into a bacon grease pan pretty quickly anyway if you’re cooking more than three strips of bacon in it). And while the fat was beautifully rendered and crunchy, the lean bits leaned a little stale and hammered tasting.

4. Dry Pan

This was the way I learned to cook bacon, and presumably, most people do too. Bacon in a pan, cook until finished on medium-ish heat. Some people flip a lot, some people flip a little; I haven’t noticed that it makes much difference either way.

Time: 11 minutes.

Original Notes:

Visibly a little more uneven than the oil pan and baked methods, with less curl. Mostly looks good though, the differences are fairly negligible. In my mouth, the fat is rendered nicely and melts in the mouth, though the leaner bits are harder and less melty. A lot of the lean parts fall into that awkward middle ground between chewy and crunchy, more like old tortilla chips.

Spice level is good, as you would expect.

Bottom Line:

The tried-and-true method earns a solid C+ from this reviewer. The upsides are that it cooks up pretty fast (one of the biggest surprises for me from this test was that adding water or oil didn’t speed up the cook time at all) and tastes pretty good. The downsides are that you’re limited by pan size and that you have to hammer the lean parts a little to get the fat nicely rendered.

Also, you have to stand there poking at it.

3. Baked On Parchment Paper

This was the method I switched to after pan frying once I learned that you could. Throw some parchment paper on a baking sheet (for easier cleanup), put the bacon on there, and set the oven to bake at 375 (Fahrenheit). It takes a little longer, but you can also fit more bacon on a sheet pan than you can a pan, and you can kind of set it and forget it.

Time: 21 minutes.

Original Notes:

In color, it’s slightly lighter than the dry and oil pan methods, with curling that’s a little more than dry pan and a little less than oil pan. Texturally it’s superior to both. You get the melt-in-your-mouth rendered fat that’s the same, but the meat is less hard and almost melts in your mouth. Taste-wise it’s good, with nothing in there to alter the original flavor of the bacon (like water or oil).

This is a very good method overall when you consider how easy it is to set up, cook, and clean.

Bottom Line:

Tasting them side by side, which I’d never actually done before this test even though I have made both often, the textural superiority of baked bacon to pan-fried was pretty stark. The fat rendered without the lean parts getting that stale-tortilla chip texture, and the whole thing became melt-in-your-mouth delicious. True, it takes almost twice as long, but you don’t have to really watch it at all, it’s more of a set-it-and-forget-it process.

And then you can just let the grease dry and chuck the paper out in one go.

2. Baked On Wire Rack

I’ve used this method a few times, but it seemed like a little more work than just putting down parchment paper and laying the bacon on the parchment paper. For this I used a sheet pan, covered it with foil (again, for clean up), put a wire rack on top and let the bacon bake on the wire rack. The main difference was that the fat would drain away from the bacon while it cooked rather than the bacon cooking in its own pooling fat like it does with the parchment paper method and in the pan on the stove.

Time: 24 minutes.

Original Notes:

The least curling of any method, it’s actually weird how flat this bacon stayed (which isn’t a plus or a minus, I don’t really have a preference on whether my bacon is curly or flat). Color-wise, it’s lighter than the pan methods but not as light as the water pan, microwave, or sous vide. The slice seems bigger than any other method too, like it somehow shrank less. Biting in… mmm, the fat on this is so crumbly and delicate. It seems almost aerated compared to the other methods. The meat is only slightly less crumbly than the fat. It falls apart easily but it’s very melt in your mouth. Easily the best so far.

Bottom Line:

Again, I’d baked on a rack and on parchment before, but having them side by side really highlighted the differences. The rack-baking method was noticeably, if only slightly, better than parchment. It also took slightly more time, and a little bit more prep. But on that note, was it really that much more elaborate than parchment? Parchment takes less time to set up, but once it’s done, you have to take the bacon off the parchment and put it somewhere to drain. Whereas with the wire rack it’s already draining so you can just pull it out of the oven and leave it there. I’ll be a rack man from now on.

Or I would be, if not for…

1. Right On The Barbecue Grill

When we’re cooking a hamburger, steak, or hot dog, going outside to the grill seems like the obvious play.Why isn’t that also true for bacon?

Okay, probably because we tend to want to stay indoors while cooking breakfast. But still! I’ll admit, even I didn’t think of this method right away, and I had a memorable grilled bacon experience. It was in Australia, at a Safari Camp, right after I got engaged. Our guide cooked us up a feed (in Australian parlance) using only a grill and it was one of the best breakfasts, and best bacon, I’ve ever had (engagement was pretty tight too). Granted, cooking bacon over a grill seemed especially Australian, and it was Australian bacon, which is different, which is probably why it generally didn’t occur to me before now.

Still, I thought, it had to be worth a shot.

For this method, I used my very cheap, not-very-clean crappy propane grill. If you have a nicer grill, a charcoal or a wood-pellet job, I imagine it could only be better than this. Roast me for my dirty grill if you must. But also, I’d contend, shouldn’t a grill be kind of dirty? Discuss.

Anyway, I know my grill tends to cook fairly hot and unevenly (remember, cheap), so I chose a cooler spot. I heated it nice and hot on high for a few minutes (the ol’ “Dudes Rock” sanitization method) then put the bacon on and immediately turned it all the way down (I also hoped getting it nice and hot first would keep the meat from sticking). Then I closed the lid and walked away for a few minutes. When I came back the bacon seemed to be cooking nicely so I basically just flipped it over once and pretty soon after that it was good to go.

Time: 14 minutes.

Original Notes:

Medium in color, slightly darker than sous vide, but lighter than pan or oven methods. Medium curly. The lean parts look less hammered while fat looks well rendered. There are some faint grill lines and light blackening at the edges. Biting into it, the taste is… shockingly excellent, actually. Melt-in-your-mouth fat plus chewier meat, and really good flavor.

And this was on a propane grill. With charcoal, I imagine it’d be even better.

Bottom Line:

I don’t know that the grill method was definitely better tasting than wire rack baking — it was probably even money. But considering how much faster it was, not to mention no real setup or cleanup to speak of, I had to give it the edge. Really they both benefit from the same phenomenon — that the fat has someplace to go while the bacon is cooking (not that I’m generally against meat cooking in its own fat). That, and in both cases, the fat rendered without the meat getting too dried out or hard. With the grill method, it actually had a nice chew to it that none of the other methods could match. The downside is that you do have to go outside for it. That being said, you don’t have a grease-filled pan to deal with at the end.

Final Thoughts

I did my best to consider all of the factors involved here — from ease of use to time of cook to labor to cleanup. The grill honestly shocked me, I had no idea it would turn out so well. True, going outside for it is kind of a pain in the butt, but if you’re not up for that, there’s always the wire rack method, which is also delicious.