Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 16) at 1pm Eastern I’ll be presenting a webinar in partnership with American Management Assocation (they published my first book, The Virtual Handshake) entitled How to Use LinkedIn to Excel in Your Current Position and Plan for Your Next.

This is not a webinar on the mechanics of how to use LinkedIn – this is focused entirely on the business strategy of using LinkedIn – how to create value for your business and career and how to be most productive with the time you spend on LinkedIn. Some of the specific topics include:

• The latest “dos and don’ts” for building an effective profile that gains maximum exposure in search engines
• Tips for direct one-to-one outreach—the right way to find and connect with others
• Ways to create value from the networks of others
• Effective use of the Q&A function: how to find the nuggets, what and when to answer, as well as potential legal liabilities
• How to use the answers section to be recognized as—or to find—an expert in your field
• Understanding and utilizing the power of LinkedIn groups
• How LinkedIn can be used as a tool for competitive research and product launches
• Stealth strategies for seeding conversations
• How to maximize productivity—profiles and routines (how often to check it, avoiding e-mail overload, etc.)
• Ways to merge blog feeds into your profile
• Understand how and why a paid LinkedIn membership can be of value to you

This is a 90-minute webinar with plenty of time for live Q&A. Registration is $149 and includes an activity guide to maximize your learning experience.

Well, I finally made the infamous Bacon Explosion, and it was excellent. I pretty much followed the original recipe, but in the process I learned a few things that aren’t covered in the original post, and that I didn’t find in any of the few videos I watched and blog posts I read before making it. I hope these will help you maximize your Bacon Explosion experience.

Shopping

1. The recipe calls for 2 lbs. of bacon and 2 lbs. of sausage. I don’t know if they have access to some sort of extra long bacon or something, but there was no way 2 lbs. of sausage were going in there. I only used a pound and it was completely, completely stuffed. If you want to fit a little more in, do your weave looser (my weave was completely tight), but don’t expect to put in the full 2 lbs.
2. They don’t explicitly say so, but you really have to use thick cut bacon. The regular thin stuff is probably too fragile too survive the assembly, much less the trip to and from the grill.
3. I know that if you’re eating this beast in the first place, the nutritional issues may not be your highest priority. However, if you use light pork sausage rather than regular, you’ll cut out about 650 calories per pound of sausage. That’s what I used and it worked great. Plenty moist.
4. Now this is important. The bacon needs to be straight-edged, not wavy. The bacon I got had a turn at the end and some breaks in the edge. That made weaving it really difficult and created some loose flaps during cooking that were kind of a nuisance.
   

   You want this: Image by Yogma via flickr

   Not this: Image by minjungkim via flickr

   That may seem like a triviality, but trust me, it will save you headache later to pick your bacon carefully.

5. The bacon and the sausage are already salty, and the BBQ sauce you’ll use probably has salt in it too. Using a rub that has salt in it too I thought was overkill. I’d recommend using something without salt. If you can find an actual BBQ rub without salt, great, but if not, you can use some Mrs. Dash (maybe their Mesquite Grilling Blend) or better yet, make your own.
6. If you don’t already have one, you’re going to need a non-skid cutting board. Cutting this thing neatly is tricky, and if your cutting board is sliding around it’s impossible.

Prep

1. How to do the bacon weave is NOT intuitively obvious. I made about three false starts before I finally figured it out. None of the bacon explosion videos really show it (well, I finally found one, after the fact, but she definitely did it the hard way). Here’s the easy way:

   And as I said before, if you’re planning on using more than a pound of sausage, you’ll need to make your weave pretty loose, i.e., a little extra space between the bacon slices.

2. A little grated cheese sprinkled on top of the crumbled bacon will help keep the bacon from just falling out when it’s cut. I used part-skim mozzarella so as to not add too much moisture or any more grease.
3. The sausage does not always roll up as easily and neatly as the video make it appear. If you use your fingers, the sausage tears apart. You’ll want something with a long straight edge, e.g., a long knife, a meat cleaver, a solid metal spatula or even a flexible cutting board like I mentioned earlier. Slip the straight edge between the sausage and the bacon and use that to roll up the sausage.
4. Just cheat and use toothpicks! The end pieces of the bacon don’t always stay neatly flat, and if you have to move your Bacon Explosion around the grill at all for even cooking, that bottom seam is going to start coming apart. Stick a couple of toothpicks through the bacon on the ends and along the bottom. The bottom ones will need to go in fairly deep – don’t forget to pull them out!

Cooking

1. Yes, you can cook this on a gas grill, although it will be tricky if it’s a single burner. On a dual burner, put a smoker box or aluminum foil tray of wood smoking chips on the flame side and the Bacon Explosion on the other side. Do NOT put it directly over the flame! That’s a recipe for disaster.
2. Unless you have an absolutely perfect grilling setup, you’re going to need to move this thing 2-3 times to cook evenly. Hence the need for the toothpicks, I think.

Cutting

1. This thing is a pain to cut and keep neat. I have a really nice, professional-grade knife and even sharpened it for the occasion, and I still had trouble. I actually ended up switching knives. Here’s what I think will work best:
   • A non-slip cutting board. It’s going to want to move back and forth.
   • A knife with a large serration, e.g., a bread knife. The straight edge just kept getting tripped up when it hit the edge of a bacon slice. You don’t want a finely serrated knife either, like some popular “self-sharpening” knives, as it will tend to just shred the met. My bread knife did the trick, but not before I had made three pretty messy cuts.
   • Make 9 cuts, period. You can really only cut it in between the bacon slices or right in the middle of them. 5 slices = 9 cuts = 10 pieces.

All in all, a very fun experience. Yes, I’ll probably do it again (though not any time soon!).

By the way, if you enjoy the Bacon Explosion, I highly recommend this Pork Loin with Bacon and Brown Sugar Glaze. I fixed it at the same meal, and most of my extended family gave it the slight edge over the Bacon Explosion. They actually make a great combination if you have a lot of people to feed.