ON BACON AND MAN FOOD...

A friend of mine is a "man food" maestro. He is king of wings, a topper in poppers and the chief of beef. Where we really cross passions is in bacon. He sends me items he finds from lurking on, who knows how many, blogs and websites. So a few weeks ago he sends me this recipe, can't even remember the name now, but it was breakfast sausage filled with chopped bacon and cheese and wrapped in, you guessed it, Bacon. My arteries were seizing as I read the recipe, but I couldn't stop reading mostly because of one phrase: "take the bacon weave and carefully wrap it around the sausage roll up..." Bacon Weave????? A new phrase immediately entered my lexicon and I went to applying this manly textile in as many places as I could. Mike had previously sent me a recipe for the "Alien Probe" which was sausage wrapped around an Anaheim pepper stuffed with cheese and smoked for a couple of hours. Meat perfection it was...until we wrapped it in the best fabric of all... the bacon weave. What was manly and awesome became somehow more manly and awesomer with the simple addition of the weave. J-BAR-H Catering fed the men of the Frank Danna Man Bash last weekend and amid the sliced sirloin sandwiches, smoked & grilled bologna sandwiches, jalapeno poppers and buffalo wings, the Bacon Weave Wrapped Alien Probe stood head and shoulders above the rest...


So why is that? Why is bacon such a manly food? And why did I go through 10 pounds of bacon in barbeculinary research? I think like so many other things guys do...bacon is bad for us. Isn't that where our most fun comes from? Jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, running with the bulls (ask Diana about THAT one!) eating 6 pound, hamburgers and entering food eating contests. If it can kill us, then it is fun. The faster it can kill us the more we will pay to do it.


So with that in mind I tried to take the bacon weave to new heights. Where could we go with this? I decided that I also wanted to mess with a personal sized bacon weave and had a lot of fun with it. When you cut the strips in half long ways and then width wise they become the perfect size for a one up and when draped over an upside down muffin pan become little bowls of goodness. First thing that came to mind was spinach salad in a bacon bowl, then I moved to spring salad, then of course flattened out it became a perfect woven topping for breakfast.
There just really was no end to what a man can do with bacon...it's everything that manly food should be.

We are rolling out our Weddings Made Easy program today and are really looking forward to showing Houston that weddings can be affordable AND still leave a great impression on their guests. This fits nicely with our unwillingness to participate in the recession and passing that sentiment on to our clients! Given that we ONLY do buffet catering, we are already ahead of the competition on price.

We have also developed some decor packages that they can use, even if they don't have us do our full buffets. They are called Wedding In A Box and come complete with table linens, chair covers, centerpieces and other decor items. This, coupled with our great catering prices, will really help the budget-conscious bride push her costs way down.

I know there is a lot of money to be made in weddings, and we are definitely not afraid to ask for our fair share, but I think there is also alot of money that can be saved, with some minor adjustments in expectations. If budget is an issue, and I know it is not in many cases, then is it absolutely necessary to have sit down service? Each server is going to cost upwards of $150 and most weddings end up needing 8 or more plus chef time and dish rental. Are ice sculptures even relevant any more? They are cool and get noticed, but how many weddings have you gone to where they didn't have one? Do we do them because we have to, or are expected to, or because we just love perishable artwork cliches? How about full bars? Thousands can go down the drain in a few hours and then someone has to deal with the drunks. Better to set a few bottles of wine on the tables and some beer on ice and when it runs out, it runs out. This saves not only on booze, but on labor and liability as well. There are many ways to save money on weddings while still producing an affair to remember, we just need to identify the trade-offs and who to make it pop without the missing elements.

In todays sensibilities, I think a nice, reserved wedding, with great quality food is going to be appreciated not only by the guests, but the brides and whoever is footing the bills. We look forward to helping our customers make fabulous memories!

Antipasto Platter

We made these antipasto platters for a casual New Years Eve party.

New Year New Ways

So we are getting this year started out in defiance of the economy. We have chosen not to take part in the economic downturn of 2008-2009 and are looking forward to a prosperous year.

J-BAR-H Texas Foods, LLC and Texas Longhorn For Hire have teamed up to create unique wedding packages as well as combine our marketing efforts. (Mostly Diana's marketing efforts!)

Our new "Planner Points" programs will reward our regular customers with free J-BAR-H products and food while we save their companies money.

We will also be bringing in new online ordering capabilities that will allow our planners a much easier to use interface. Be looking for that to come online at some point 1st quarter.

We wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009. Remember, you can choose not to participate in the recession!!!