Aioli First (you can make this a day ahead):

1. Combine the chipotle, soy sauce, sugar, and liquid smoke in a blender. **Even though this is an exceedingly small volume for a full-sized blender, it will work! An immersion blender or a food processor will not work because the blade is not low enough in the bowl (I’ve tried-and failed).
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, lemon juice and Dijon mustard until fully incorporated.
3. Whisking constantly, start to slowly add the grapeseed oil-you want a very small, stead stream. **If you see that the oil is separated from the egg yolk mixture, stop pouring and whisk until all ingredients are incorporated, then resume your oil pouring.
4. Add your blender contents to your oil mixture-be sure to scrape your blender blade with a spatula to get everything you can back out of your blender, because your blender has all of the flavor!

Now for the Tomatoes:

1. Hull your tomatoes by cutting off the bottom and top of the tomatoes. You want to cut the bottom off so that the tomatoe can stand up on its own, and you need to cut off the top so that you can get your tomato huller in (if you don’t have a huller, we’ve hulled with a combination of chopsticks, rolling and a small paring knife, but get the huller-it will change your life). **This is an exceedingly tedious task, and as such I usually delegate to my dear boyfriend Tyler. Immediately place hulled tomatoes in the fridge.
2. Slice your bacon width-wise, getting about 10-12 pieces of bacon per slice. Be sure to have at least enough bacon pieces as you have tomatoes, with a few left over-just in case (Tyler always snipes a piece of bacon). Fry these until crispy, and cover with a towel until you’re ready to stuff your tomatoes.
3. Slice your lettuce leaves into small pieces along the crispy vein of the leaf. This will make it easier to stuff the tomato if you have the firm lettuce vein to push into the tomato-and it adds a fresh crunch to compliment the bacon when eaten.
4. Pipe your aioli into each tomato, filling about 1/3 of the inside of the tomato. **To prepare for piping, but you aioli in a freezer bag (a sandwich bag is a little too thin), and cut a very small corner off of the bag-the whole created should be about half the size of a #2 pencil.
5. After piping is complete, put any leftover aioli back into the fridge to be served with the tomatoes as a dip.
6. Take a piece of bacon and a piece of lettuce together, and place into the tomato. **This part is also tedious, but as you go you’ll hit your groove and pick up the pace. Especially if you do over 100.