One of the things I like to do is pull inspiration from much better cooks than I am. If I have a fabulous dish at a restaurant, I'm tempted to try to rework it, and if I can get at least 60% of the way to a mindblowing dish, then the result is still going to be damn good.

Last weekend, we came into the possession of a Costco quantity of medjool dates. Which put me in mind of the Devils On Horseback at Victory 44, in which those dates are stuffed with date puree, wrapped in really good bacon, and served with bacon foam, bacon powder, vinegar jelly cubes, and dehydrated jalapeno. The dates are sweet, the bacon is rich and smoky, and the vinegar and heat cut through it like a fucking lightsaber of flavor.

I do not make vinegar jelly, and I do not dehydrate thin slices of jalapeno, so this had to be worked around. I also didn't have enough dates to make both a date puree AND the devils, not in the quantities I wanted to, so I needed a different stuffing. What I did have was chevre.

To start, I wanted to make a jalapeno-infused vinegar that would combine the two elements I couldn't recreate in one fell swoop. This was simple, effective, and while it makes far more than you need for the recipe, I plan to use the rest for a vinegary barbecue sauce in a day or two. You'll need:

• Three jalapeno peppers
• One shallot
• One cup white wine vinegar
• Salt

PREP: Remove the seeds from the jalapenos and dice them (see below). Chop the shallot - you should need about two tablespoons. Add the jalapeno, shallot, vinegar, and a pinch of salt to a blender and puree on high.

What I ended up doing, since I had the evening free, was to puree the vinegar, then let the foam settle, then puree it some more, then settle some more. I think about four cycles, letting everything steep and sit for a few hours. This is probably not necessary, although you should let the foam settle out at least once.

Take the liquid and strain it, pressing on the pulp with the back of a rubber spatula until it's given it's all. Reserve four tablespoons of the vinegar and store the rest away for some other project.

Once you have the vinegar, you can make the filling. You'll need:

• Four tablespoons of jalapeno vinegar
• Two tablespoons of good honey
• Six ounces of mild chevre, room temperature

PREP/COOKING: Dump everything into the work bowl of your stand mixer and break out your whisk attachment. Whip the honey and vinegar into the goat cheese, starting on low, then on high, scraping down the bowl as necessary.

You're looking for a loose, but not runny, consistency. Something along the lines of cake frosting. You may want to add the vinegar gradually, and/or have some extra goat cheese on hand,

To make the actual devils, you'll need:

• Medjool dates. I used unpitted. I don't know what pitted ones are like, so I can't speak to whether or not they'd work.
• Goat cheese filling, from above
• Thin-sliced good quality bacon, one slice for every 2-3 dates
• Toothpicks

Par-cook the bacon for 1-2 minutes in the microwave, depending on the power of your microwave and the nature of your bacon. I used the low sodium uncured bacon from Whole Foods, and I won't be using it again, because in addition to being thin (good for wrapping), it was also narrow (bad for wrapping) and cooked insanely fast in the microwave (also bad).

With a sharp knife, cut a slit down the length of the date, along the pit. Gently split the dates and remove the pit. Fill a piping bag or makeshift Ziploc piping bag with the goat cheese filling and a small round tip. Pipe the filling into the dates and close them. You'll have to gauge how much by eye - dates aren't all the same size. I like just a thin line of filling peeking out the side.

Preheat your oven to 350. Take the par-cooked bacon and wrap it around the dates, then stick a toothpick through the whole thing to keep it closed. Arrange the dates on a tray and bake until the bacon is cooked and crispy. How long this will take will depend on your par-cooking and your bacon. I started with an estimate of 5-8 minutes, and ended up needing at least 12. The insides didn't melt or leak or anything, though, so you're safe cooking the bacon until it's where you want it.

Take them out and let them rest for a bit before serving. Three of them makes a very rich appetizer.

So how do mine compare with the ones at Victory 44? I'd say about 65%, or very good indeed. The vinegar was there. The jalapeno was there. The heat wasn't there - sucked up by the honey and the date and the cheese. In future attempts, I will probably leave at least one jalapeno's worth of seeds in when making the vinegar.

The bacon at V44 was superior - crispy and a deep dark color, as compared to the photo above. I think different bacon would help here, and possibly cooking them in a pan, although that may prove more of a challenge than it's worth. And even with all that, they're still very, very good.