The ad above ran in the Journal on Labor Day, September 6, 1965.
I like the look of unbridled glee on the kid about to devour his hot dog.
Hot dogs are a funny thing. Everybody seems to have their own preference as to how they prepare them. Mom always boiled them. As for me, if I can't grill them, then I fry them up in a pan.
Then there's the various ways to consume them. I'll have Stadium Mustard if you don't mind. But never (yecch) catsup (or ketchup if you prefer).
When I worked in Downtown Cleveland, it wasn't hard to find a guy selling them out of his cart right on the sidewalk. I don't remember ever getting sick from eating one.
And when the company I was working for moved to the near West Side, I would go up to Lorain Road sometimes during lunch and get a few coney dogs from Steve's Lunch. The hotdogs were grilled on a rotating griddle that was pretty much right in the window. They were fantastic.
It was sad when Steve's Lunch suffered a fire in 2015 – that was the end of it.
Some Clevelanders love the Hot Dog Inn, which was further east down Lorain Road, close to Fulton. I might have tried it once, but I preferred Steve's because it was so close to where I worked.
These days, rather than buy a pack of hot dogs, cook them all, and then eat them until they're gone, I restrict my consumption of them to eating coney dogs at Dog N Suds (which just closed for the season on Sunday).
Enjoying one hotdog a week (which is about how often I ate at Dog N Suds this summer) is better than eating eight in a week, considering how they are supposed to cost you some of your lifespan.
With my luck it'll turn out that they're worse for you than cigarettes.
Bad for your health? "Ya gotta die from something," he said, fatefully.
ReplyDeleteThe kid in the ad... See the freckles? 10-to-one he has red hair and blue eye which makes him creepier than ever because that particular color combination is as close to being genetically damaged as you can get without actually crossing over the line!
My favorite way to cook a hotdog is to jam it on a fork, and char it over the gas burner; sadly, my stove is electric.
ReplyDeleteKetchup (or barbecue sauce) for me, or some chili, cheese, and bacon, which I privately think of as a "don't tell Dr. Henderson" dog, although the good Doctor probably downs more weenies than I do.
Sonic does a good chili cheese dog, and it HAS been a while...
For decades, the only times I have consumed a hot dog were at baseball games. There they taste great. Otherwise, yecch.
ReplyDeleteOk guys, don’t freak out, but lately I’ve been “spiralizing” my hotdogs with a knife and a skewer first, thus increasing the surface area to brown under the broiler. It adds nooks and crannies to hold the toppings better too! My husband happily remembers his dad taking him to Hills that day for the hotdogs. I’ll bet his mom was not happy they ruined their five-o’clock on-the-dot supper…
ReplyDeleteGreat comment, Wendy! And that's neat that your husband remembers going there that day! The Bradys were a 5:00 dinner family too. Anything earlier would be unthinkable. And I still eat right at 5:00!!!
DeleteI remember getting two hot dogs (ketchup only) that day.
DeleteI’m more surprised that back in the 60s a store was open that late on a holiday.
ReplyDelete