Preserving Beauty tastes scandalous.

I use to think that saying the word "scandalous" would actually make me scandalous.

I guess if you really want something bad enough you can trick yourself into believing anything is possible at age 12 (or 21 in my case).

This is the thing, I am most likely the least scandalous person you will ever meet.

• I have never smoked a cigarette (Hookah is a different topic entirely);
• I didn't drink until I was 21 (because it is against the law people);
• I didn't have my first kiss until I was 21 (Oh, James);
• I told on myself when I went tee-peeing in middle school;
• When I wanted to stay out later than curfew in high school I would call my parents and without fail they would always gave me permission to stay out later;
• I didn't have sex until I met my husband at age 26;
• And I've just never been really good a lieing. I've never seen the point. Catch me? I did the crime, I'll do the time.

In fact, This is how anti-scandalous I am:  When I was in high school our senior class built our class homecoming float in our barn on the back acres of our home.

It was "cool" at that time in our lives to sneak alcoholic drinks around because... well, I guess because it was cool.

I just didn't see the allure of it all. Call me crazy (or a stick-in-the-mud) but after being witness to alcoholism in my life - I just didn't get it. Why would you want to abuse your body like that? Why would you want to take part in "this thing" that caused others so much pain.  At that time in my life, that was the only role I could see alcohol playing.

I've become quite educated about alcoholism since this time but when Cliff brought alcohol to my home that year, in disguise of a gatorade bottle none-the-less, I didn't know what else to do other that to politely asked him to leave. When he refused I told him he could stay but he had to dump the alcohol. I wasn't going to the be the house or the person to allow him to get his first (okay, it was probably by no means his "first") alcohol experience that he would later share with his therapist as he tried to overcome alcoholism at the ripe ge of 22.  I just wasn't going to be "that" person, "that" home.

But I have continued to have this twisted relationship with the word "scandalous". When I say it under my breath it makes me feel empowered. When I look at Jake and whisper it in his ear it makes me feel sexxy (yes, with two x's). When I write that dirty 10 letter word down it makes me feel like I'm the woman in the long white trench coat on a Matlock episode sauntering in the background as they survey the murder scene. When I speak it in conversation with others I feel like I'm giving them permission to feel powerful, continue on in the path of their "scandal" and do something different for a change!

The word "scandalous" makes me feel full of beauty and life, permission and authority.

Try it. Say it outloud. Whisper it to yourself or in your lovers ear. Take a pencil and piece of paper and write down "I am scandalous!" and tell me how you feel.

I know. It's amazing.

So when this recipe popped up on my radar I couldn't stop thinking about it. Day after day after day I just kept ruminating over this flurry of ingrediants that could bring any vegetarian to their knees. Which is exactly what it did.

With the exception of Christmas dinner 2007 when we bought a rotisserie chicken for Eddie down the block & some spicy salami purchased during my pregnancy, we don't buy meat. If it is served to us, we'll eat it. We just don't buy it.

But bacon laced spicy jam with hot peppers and apples... I couldn't resist.

I went out and bought some of the thickest sliced, maple smoked bacon and it was worth every denied conviction I felt.

The jam?

It was strong & sweet (just like a scandalous lover), rough in texture but oh so smooth going down (just like the perfect cupcake).

It made me a believer in pork again and assured my current religious status as non-Jewish.

It made me feel scandalous without even breathing the word.

So go ahead, make this, process it, can it and do as Rootfood does,

... add a spoonful to some scrambled eggs for a lazy but delicious breakfast fit for a silver screen diva with a wicked hangover and a stranger in her bed.

And taste the scandalous preserved beauty.