Let's take coffee one step further with a recipe my father made many times in the early ‘80s that everyone thumbed their nose up at then - but many chefs are blending sweet and salty together now.

Yankee fusion bacon

• 1 lb. thick-cut bacon (10 slices)
• 2/3 c. packed brown sugar
• 1 T. real maple syrup
• 3 T. brewed coffee; even better with vanilla-flavored coffee
• Fresh cracked pepper*

Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a rimmed baking pan with parchment or waxed paper and set a flat rack on top. Lay bacon strips on rack, with edges touching. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, brewed coffee and maple syrup, stirring to blend. Brush the bacon with half of sugar mixture. Add coarse fresh cracked pepper lightly (or generously) over bacon.

Bake 15 minutes. Carefully turn bacon over and brush with remaining sugar glaze and cracked pepper. Bake until crispy, 10 minutes more. Caution - sugar glaze is very hot. Allow to cool for 3 to 4 minutes before serving.

*If you don't have cracked pepper but have whole peppercorns, simply lay the side of a large knife onto the whole peppercorns and using the palm of your hand, crush the pepper.

Up here in Maine, milkshakes are milk, ice cream and a syrup of some type. Milkshakes in Rhode Island are just that - milk you shake with syrup. When you add ice cream, it is called a coffee cabinet or coffee cab. Cabinet is a local term for frappe.

By the way, which coffee syrup won in a blind taste test in Rhode Island? The newest of coffee syrups: morning glory. Although touted as a premium syrup and a tad more expensive, many said it tasted exactly like coffee ice cream when blended with milk. With cane sugar, water and coffee and the first 3 ingredients, as opposed to high fructose corn syrup in both Autocrat and Eclipse, many thought that made the difference.