The whole house smells like bacon

© Debora McNeer

According to my daughter, a traditional Cobb salad is the low-carber's perfect meal. I made a version of one last night for dinner (aren't they all just a little bit different?): torn romaine and red onions dressed with pesto salad dressing and topped with sliced black olives, chopped hard-cooked egg, diced chicken breast, crumbled blue cheese and bacon, bacon, BACON!

I bake my bacon on a rack in a 375° oven until it's crispy but not burned. Less mess than on the stove, but you'd still think I put parfume de bacon in the air freshener thingies.

The salad was delicious, and very satisfying – two of the results I love about lots o'protein.

I had to warn the husband that the five leftover pieces of bacon were a reserved ingredient for our Super Bowl supper tomorrow night. He has no concept, because he doesn't cook, that you can make more of something one day in order to use it later. He also has no concept, because he usually eats only one daily meal – dinner – of serving sizes.

For instance, when we had meat loaf the other night, I put two small slices on my plate, and he set out to eat the rest of it. I had to stop him – I used 20 ounces of meat in the thing! Even explaining that he nearly ate a pound of meat for dinner didn't phase him. He's accustomed to ordering a 16-ounce steak in a restaurant. I seriously had intended for that meat loaf to provide two meals for the two of us. Didn't happen.

The Super Bowl must be the low-carber's perfect party event. I'm taking full advantage of the fact that football food falls into the meat category. Our meal-of-snacks will look like this:

• crudites and baked low-carb tortilla triangles with hummus
• Buffalo chicken legs with bleu cheese sauce (this is what I'm adding the leftover bacon to)
• roast beef slices spread with horseradish cream cheese
• pickles and pickled okra
• sliced summer sausage and cheese
• sun-dried tomato and homemade mozzarella salad

It's a higher-fat menu than South Beach would like, but it's the Super Bowl! And I'm not serving football-shaped brownies for dessert. In fact, I think we'll be too full for dessert, don't you?

I just hope Eli isn't too full from his pre-game meal to beat the Patriots. I'll probably be too full to watch the final play, but I'm going to really, really try to stay up for the whole thing. We will then go into football mourning until September 1, when the college season kicks off with West Virginia against Marshall.

That is, if they're still part of the Big East conference. No matter who they play, I'm guessing there will be some bacon involved in our game-time feast. At least in September I can open the doors and windows.