His legend lives on or Elvis hasn’t left the kitchen

This is a short story about neighbors and the sharing of a new recipe. I was in Wisconsin for Christmas with my family. My mother lives in the neighborhood I grew up, some of the neighbors are the same as when I lived there many years ago. Cindy lives next door to my mother. She is a sweet woman who is a dear friend. She was especially a friend to my Grandmother who died in November. I am sure Cindy misses her greatly. I babysat her two children when we were all young and she catches up on me when I visit and I catch up on her and her family.

Cindy came over one day to chat. With her she brought a plate of freshly baked cookies. Selections of a few different types of cookies to pick from were displayed nicely on a Christmas plate. She started telling us about the different types she baked up that morning. One type she was really interested in having us taste was the Elvis cookies. My mom grabbed one and broke it into three parts. The cookie was broken evenly one third of a cookie piece for her, one for my sister-in-law Irina and one third for me to eat. We all popped our little part of the cookie into our mouths. At first it tasted pretty good, peanut butter cookie tasting, with some banana to give it nice moisture. Then as you chewed a bit you noticed something really chewy in there. Bits of something smoky tasting started to show up as you chewed. Chew, scrunch eyebrows trying to figure it out. As Cindy can see we are all very confused she started to explain.

It seems that Elvis’ favorite sandwich was peanut butter, bananas and bacon. No, that wasn’t a typo, I did say bacon. These cookies were Elvis cookies, designed in his honor. Peanut butter, bananas and diced up pieces of bacon. I tell you we all wanted to spit so fast you can’t imagine. We did all manage to swallow the 1/3 of cookie and pass on any future ones. There is something fundamentally wrong with the idea of a cookie a wonderful peanut butter one especially that has bacon added to it.

So the lesson of the story is ask your neighbors (even your very sweet ones) what they are feeding you BEFORE you put it in your mouth. We all tried to get others to taste those cookies but we had no more takers. The word of the bacon peanut butter cookies spread.

For your pleasure:
ELVIS COOKIES
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter (because you wouldn’t want to confuse the bacon lumps and nuts!)
• ½ cup packed light brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup crumbled cooked (very crisp) bacon (about 6 strips)
• ½ cup diced firm banana
Heat the oven to 350.
In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter and two sugars. Beat until well combined. Beat in the egg until just combined. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. With the mixer on low, add flour and soda to peanut butter mixture, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Gently mix in the bacon and bananas, trying not to mash the bananas.
Using slightly wet hands, roll rounded teaspoons of dough into balls and place on the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch. Dip the tines of a fork into water, then flatten the cookies until they are about 1 ½ inches around.
Bake on the middle rack for 11 minutes. Cool cookies on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then remove with a spatula to racks to cool completely. Makes 30 cookies.