Memorial Day weekend is upon us. It's time to replace your stars and stripes and to start thinking again about man's best friend: the hot dog. Yes, it's nature's perfect food (sorry, banana). Hot and spicy with loads of yummy hidden fat, it's the foundation of every truly great summer pastime. The hamburger? Oh sure, it may taste good, but how many ways can you make it? Can you steam a burger in beer? Can you impale a burger on a stick and toast it over a campfire? Can you smother a burger in saurkraut, onions, relish, chili, cheese and mustard and still have something that tastes great? Uh uh. The hot dog is the best garbage food in the world. And some of us take it seriously.
As a kid, my family would often spend time with my mother's side of the family at Breezy Point, just across Sheepshead Bay from Coney Island, home of the great American hot dog. My mother would send me to Trunz, a Brooklyn chain of small food stores, to collect hot dogs. The butcher would take your order and then turn and pull a long string of hot dogs out of the case and snip the link casing arriving expertly at exactly the right weight. Then he would wrap the links up in white paper and send me home with a big dill pickle. Good days.
So do your self a favor today. Find a hot dog and eat it. For America.
5 comments:
Trunz Meat Market!! Oh what a blast from the past (although we were customers of the store on Hillside Ave.) Big men in white aprons bloodied from the waist down, sawdust on the floors, dill pickles you selected yourself from a huge wooden barrel and slices of bologna handed out to the little ones as you talked and waited--and waited some more--while the butcher sawed, trimmed, and weighed the cut. 350 degrees for 3-1/2 hours should do it, Mrs. A. No quick visit was this stop. No styrofoam, or vacuum seal either; only butcher's wrapping paper expertly folded. Thanks for reminding me.
Happy Memorial Day. Meet you at the Catherdral by the ping-pong toss. Win me a goldfish.
Okay, if you say so, but I am not eating any apple pie.
Is a brat close enough? I really like brats.
I won't eat my chidren, KJ. No matter how tasty they might be.
You could eat other people's brats.
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