Jim Gaffigan is one of my favorite comedians. He is famous for being super pale, a little pudgy, and adorably devoted to his family. For many of his fans, myself included, he really put the nail in the coffin for Hot Pockets, and we will forever be in his debt for that. The real Gaffigan gold, however, is not in his hilarious take on hand-held microwaveable meat sandwiches. Nay nay – his best stuff is about bacon.

Bacon, the great Gaffigan tells us, is the fairy dust of food. You can sprinkle it on anything and it makes it the best thing you have ever eaten. How true it is. You can add bacon to a salad, a hamburger, and even a chocolate cupcake, and it is instantly yummier. This is an important truth to take with you when you are experimenting with new and unfamiliar vegetables.

When I met the world’s largest bag of Swiss chard at last week’s LFM – that’s Saturdays, 9-2, by the way, in case you wanted to come out this weekend and snag some yourself – I was a little intimidated. But the vendor said, “cook it in a little bacon fat and…” well I couldn’t hear the rest, because she said bacon.

I handed her my money, took the giant bag of unfamiliar greens and raced home. If there is one thing I can do, it’s add bacon to things.

I washed the greens, chopped it up, sauteed it with onion and in a wee bit of bacon fat, which I happened to have since I had conveniently just fried some bacon, and enjoyed a sizable portion with my dinner. It was delicious.

Gaffigan was right. Bacon is the fairy dust of food. It tricked me into eating a bunch of super healthy greens, and that is what we will call a win-win scenario. My mouth got bacon, and my body got greens. We were all so happy.

Introduce your bacon to the Swiss chard at the Linton Farmers’ Market this weekend, and you can be happy too.

–Amy Lore, Linton Farmers’ Market Steering Committee