Plump tomatoes, salty bacon, crisp lettuce, soft bread, this week we want you to be inspired by the BLT. Write a piece of either fiction or creative non-fiction based on this photo.

Bacon. This is bacon like nothing that you could ever find in a store. Nothing.

It’s thickly sliced, deeply smoked and they make an attempt to cut it into slices but there are often big chunks the size of your thumb.

Every year when my family gathers for its regular family reunion my sister and I make a trip to the smoke house. This place has a smell that is so strong that you can smell it before you even get out of your car…. so strong that it feels like it burns your sinuses.

But the bacon is worth it. Yes, it’s even worth the powerful smell of fish too.

Fish, wild fowl, turkey, beef, and pork are some of the things that you will find in the case as you walk in the front door. All freshly made there every day, following the same recipe day after day that brings in people from all over the area and often selling out before closing time.

There is only one place that you can get this special bacon, and if you’re my sister you can only get it once a year (because that’s how often she comes home). When she’s here she buys the bacon in bulk and has it shipped back to her house in New Jersey. I on the other hand only buy around 4 pounds because making the trip isn’t much for me.

The bacon is wonderful fried in a pan or baked in the oven. As part of a BLT (with avocado of course), a side to your breakfast, or in your favorite recipe. Be warned though… your house will have a smoke smell to it for days after cooking it!

If you’re ever in Michigan, the thumb region to be exact, make a side trip to Sebewaing and head to Jar’s for some of the best bacon that you have ever had in your entire life. It is worth it…. trust me.