Northwestern Notes

Today was a beautiful day here at the Northwestern.

Surely, you’ve heard about Burger King’s new heart-attack-in-a-dish bacon sundae. Burger King certainly isn’t the first restaurant chain to put a porky spin on dessert (see the Jack In The Box bacon milkshake and the Denny’s maple bacon sundae), but it’s the first one to do it within driving distance of our newsroom.

So today, the newly assembled Oshkosh Northwestern Bacon Team (Twitter hashtag: #onwbaconteam) officially convened for the first time. Our mission: sample the bacon sundae. We’re not the first news organization to offer a review (in fact, BuzzFeed and CollegeHumor faced off in a beautiful bacon sundae challenge yesterday), but we’re confident we’re the most bacon-smitten team to do so.

Here’s what happened.

The team: The founding members of ONW Bacon Team are digital editor Dave Wasinger, reporter Jeff Bollier (Streetwise), content manager/community newsroom editor Erin Wasinger and reporter Jessie Opoien (yours truly). Let the record reflect that Erin Wasinger is a Bacon Team member only for Kevin Bacon, and she participated in today’s event by providing moral support and taking photos.

The mission: Dave returned from lunch with three bacon sundaes.

“They’re bigger than I expected,” Jessie said.

Dave agreed: “This makes the BuzzFeed video even more impressive.”

Our goal was not to find out who could down the sundae the fastest (although Dave won that competition, by leaps and bounds), but to determine if it was as good as we hoped and dreamed it would be.

The first bites:

There was some initial disappointment when we first laid eyes on the sundae. The sundae of our dreams, the one we saw in pictures, was not what sat before us. Instead of chocolate and caramel delicately drizzled atop swirls of vanilla, we had globs of syrup smushed into a dish surrounded by melting ice cream. While the sundae of our dreams was garnished with a rich, glistening slab of crisp bacon, the sundae of reality contained a limp strip of what we assume was precooked bacon, floating in a pool of melted semi-ice-cream-product soft serve. And the tiny chunks of bacon adorning the sundae we saw in pictures were nowhere to be found.

Dave jumped right in, while Jeff and Jessie proceeded with caution. Jeff stayed fairly quiet, while Dave enthusiastically complimented the sweet-and-salty wonder and Jessie shook her first and let her eyes roll back into her head with pure joy.

This:                                                        Soon turned into this:

Dave destroyed his sundae first, much to no one’s surprise.

“You do not mix two great things like bacon and ice cream and not expect me to gulp it down,” Dave said.

Jeff was next, and Jessie conquered hers last (there’s something to be said for savoring a treat as delectable as a bacon sundae).

The numbers:

Three bacon sundaes cost a total of $8.79. At 510 calories each, the three of us consumed a combined total of 1,530 calories, 54 grams of fat and 183 grams of sugar.

The verdict:

Jeff’s review: Needs more bacon

Tasty and delicious combination of smoky, saltiness and sweet fudge and caramel, but needs more bits of bacon to make the experience last the duration of the sundae.

6 (out of 10) strips of bacon.

Dave’s review: Close to nirvana

Ice cream and bacon. Two of my favorite food items, but ones that I try to limit consumption of. Mix the two together and what gets devoured should be pure nirvana. And it came close. The sundae is basically a turtle sundae with bacon substituted for the pecans (but what would happen if you added the pecans? More awesomeness, I’d assume.). Problem is, just like many turtle sundaes you eat at places, there’s never enough pecans. Or in this case bacon. And the bacon was fast-food quality bacon — meaning low quality and highly salty, which momentarily took away from the overall taste. Would I get one again? Yes. But let me run this one off first………… now where did I place my running shoes………

6.5 (out of 10) strips of bacon.

Jessie’s review: Ecstasy on a spoon

My mom was horrified when I told her I would, in fact, be consuming one of these. I feel obligated to assure her that I will not make it a habit. Was it worth the calories? Absolutely. Was it everything I hoped for? Not quite — but boy, was it good. Bacon or not, it was a solid ice cream sundae. The syrups globbed together a bit, which was mildly annoying, but nothing a little stirring couldn’t fix. The combination of bacon, ice cream, chocolate and caramel was… how do I put this… heavenly. It was ecstasy on a spoon. The thing is — at the risk of sounding like a glutton — it needed more bacon. If I order a bacon sundae, I want bacon in almost every bite. One piece of bacon is not enough. Where were the bacon bits, Burger King? Where were they? One strip does not a bacon sundae make.

6.9 (out of 10) strips of bacon.

The aftermath:

We could all use a nap. Our managing editor, Jim Fitzhenry, seems to be concerned for our health. He’s checked to see if any of us are experiencing any heart palpitations or other ailments. So far, we’re in the clear — though words fail to describe exactly what we’re feeling right now.