Calling Cooks: Denver Bacon Takedown April 22

Fifteen pounds of Hormel Black Label Bacon. Twenty local cooks. One bacon tour bus. If you love bacon, it’s the stuff of dreams: The Denver Bacon Takedown. And lucky for you, it’s coming to Casselman’s next weekend.

The Takedown food competitions been touring the country giving home cooks an opportunity to live out their very own Iron Chef fantasies since 2003. Matt Timms, the man of the hour and el hefe of The Takedown food competitions, is back, this time to spread the blissful bacon gospel. He’s the brains behind last year’s Denver Avocado Takedown and past events––in cities like Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Seattle, to name a few––have allowed cooks to duke it out with original recipes involving cookies, fondue, salsa, and more.

Here’s how it works: Interested cooks contact Timms to get signed up. Each contestant gets a massive amount of the key ingredient (in this case, 15 lbs. of pork belly product). Contestants come up with any dish their creative culinary minds can concoct. Winners get a bevy of prizes from such awesome peeps as Cuisinart, Le Creuset, and Wusthof (I just swooned). Then Timms picks up anchor and takes off to the next city to blanket it in bacon-y goodness.

Not a cook? Not a problem, spectators are more than welcome. It’s a mere $15 to experience the delicious carnage unfolding. That feeling of needing to take your pants off after gorging on the salty smoky sweetness? Gratis.

The Denver Bacon Takedown takes place at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 22, 2012, at Casselman’s. Casselman’s is located at 2620 Walnut Street, just north of downtown Denver. For more information about the Denver Bacon Takedown, to sign up to compete, or to buy tickets to see the event, check out the website at thetakedowns.com.

Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon. Yup.