Peel and cut potatoes to bite sized pieces and keep in a bowl of cold water for now to stop from oxidizing.

Cut the sliced bacon slab into quarters to make it easier to fit in the pan to cook.

Place a 6-quart Dutch oven over medium high heat and add the bacon and cook until crisp. Remove to paper towels and when cool, crumble for serving later in this recipe. Pour off and save bacon fat, leaving a little in the pan bottom.

Heat pan again to medium high and add the salt pork and cook until crisp.

Leave the salt pork in the pot and add 3 tablespoons of butter to the fat and once melted, add the celery, onions and garlic and cook for three minutes.

Drain the raw potatoes and add to the pan along with the stock, clam juice, creamed corn, kernel corn with liquid, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, celery salt, black pepper and hot sauce. (Note: Cooking the potatoes in the chowder will help thicken the chowder)

Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook ten minutes uncovered or until potatoes are tender.

Remove the muscle from the side of each scallop and pat the scallops dry with paper towels.

While the chowder is simmering, in a large wide skillet over high heat, add a tablespoon of bacon fat and three tablespoons of butter and once hot and frothy, add half the scallops not touching each other and sear for a minute or two on each side. Remove to a plate and repeat for the remaining scallops. Let them cool a bit and once cool, quarter each one and set aside. They may not be fully cooked but will cook further in the chowder. Better to undercook than overcook in this step.

Lower the pan heat to medium low and stir in the flour and cook for two minutes, stirring often. *see note below

Remove from heat and scoop out a few ladles of the chowder liquid and place in the pan with the cooked flour and butter and stir to combine and thicken, then pour back into the chowder scraping up every last bit with a rubber spatula and stir to combine.

Lower heat to medium low and add in milk, cream and the cooked scallops along with any liquid collected from the plate.

At this point, remove all heat from the chowder and stir in the remaining butter. Taste and add salt only if needed.

If serving with grilled toast, cut French, Italian or Ciabatta bread into slices, butter lightly and grill on a hot grill pan and serve with the chowder long with the cooked crumbled bacon.