The original restaurant recipe from which I adapted this one calls for a heart-stopping one pound of bacon, two cups of heavy cream, and sixteen ounces of cheddar cheese. While there’s no disputing that it tastes delicious, if I cooked like that at home our next trip up to town would be on a stretcher. I wanted to see if I could create a thick, flavorful chowder with a slightly lower fat and sodium content without compromising on taste. To accomplish this, I leveraged a technique that I first learned to love while developing my  French Carrot-Ginger Soup recipe, which contains no cream and is thickened with Arborio rice, a grain that becomes…