HOT DOG NATION

Saturday marked the 9th Annual NJ Hot Dog Tour, and for my fifth year, I was on it.  The Tour, conceived by retired  NYC police officer Erwin "Benzee" Benz and noted hot dog authority John Fox, who hails from Union, NJ, is the one of the best gatherings of food nerds I've ever met.  The folks on the Tour are something beyond hot dog aficionados; they are fanatical in their love of tube steak. Some, like John Fox, are as interested in the provenance of  their dog (where it was made, the meats used, the style and seasoning of the meat, the relative size per pound, the nature of the bun, the cooking process) as anything else.  It makes for fascinating conversation along the Tour, and spirited debate and discussion, post-Tour.

TWO busloads of the fanatics assembled at the traditional starting point for the Tour, the famous Galloping Hill Inn in Union.  Big hot dogs here, with large (too large, in my opinion) custom buns and a variety of toppings. I won't get into those nerdy details here; you can visit www.roadfood.com and the Hot Dog Nation page on Facebook for all the picayune details.  I'm gonna post some tasty pics here and a little bit of commentary, and that's all. Below: my dog at Galloping Hill, with mustard, chili and onions.

This year's Tour featured stops at some old favorites from previous Tours, as well as a couple of new stops. I tried to tweet live from each stop, but you can get caught up in the joking and sheer gastronomic fun of it all, and perhaps miss a few shots, but I think I caught most of everything sampled by the group on Saturday.

Case in point with the photo at the top of this post: that what's left of my hot dog from Marcie's Dog House in Clark, a well-equipped truck stationed in a municipal park, dispensing  a natural casing Sabrett hot dog, topped with a special sauerkraut, a blend of mustard, relish and cabbage, a terrific topping and a terrific dog.
Marcie's also turns out an excellent version of the North Jersey style Italian hot dog (pic below), a deep fried dog tucked into a half-moon of pizza dough ("pizza bread" in the local lingo) hollowed out to fit the dog, onion, peppers and fried potatoes. My tablemates thought highly of Marcie's version:

Next, we hit another hot dog truck, Uncle Petey's Weenies in Colonia, with a tasty chili dog and a special quarter-pound German-style dog, pictured below. I went for the chili dog, pacing myself and trying to hew as close to my low-glycemic-index diet as I could.  But this was a popular choice among a lot of the Tour-goers:

We headed to Elizabeth next, and two classic hot dog vendors virtually next door to one another. Jerry's Famous Frankfurters is as old-school and low-tech as it gets, just a simple walk-up window, strictly takeout, but for me, they make my favorite hot dog on this year's Tour, a grfilled, natural casing dog with a good snap, with mustard and red sauced cooked onions.  Simply spectacular:

Just a few doors away sits Tommy's, serving from a similar walk-up window both Italian sausage and hot dogs, and specializing in the North Jersey style Italian dog. Tommy's serves the best version of the genre I've ever had. Diet notwithstanding, I ordered one, pretty much passed up on the pizza bread and potatoes, and enjoyed the dog, onions, peppers, mustard and ketchup:

(yes, there's a hot dog in there somewhere)

Our last stop is an appropriately raucous and fun place, Manny's Texas Weiners in Union.  It's a fun place in part because owner Manny Niotis is a gregarious, back-slapping host and showman. It's also because he serves up righteously good dogs and a huge menu of breakfast, lunch and dinner favorites.  The pick here is the classic texas weiner, with mustard, onions and "Greek sauce", an earthy, dark, spicy ground meat sauce with noticeable clove, cinnamon and nutmeg in the mix, in the traditional Greek sauce tradition. "We open in 1979, and we've been busy since then," Manny told us as he greeted us in the parking lot of his busy restaurant.  No doubt due in great part  to this terrific dog:

So I've been on 5 of these NJ Hot Dog Tours, and this was the first one on which I didn't feel stuffed, bloated or otherwise uncomfortable.  I avoided as much bun as possible at each stop, drank water instead of any beer (I had permission from my doctor and dietician to eat on the Tour, but had to pick my indulgance; it was a hot dog tour after all), and didn't finish but a couple of dogs.  We also only hot 6 stops; previously we had hit as many as 8.

But it was great fun, in no small part to Benzee and Fox, who timed and mapped the Tour flawlessly, briefed us on the busses about our choices at each stop,and kept an even keel and good humor from start to finish.

Next year's Tour has already been scheduled: September 21, 2013. You should be a part of this bunch next year. You'll have a blast.

GREAT AMERICAN WINNERS

This year's Great American Beer Festival (GABF) has just concluded in Denver, CO. It was the 29th year for GABF and it hosted the largest number of brewers (455), served the largest number of beers (2,200) and welcomed the greatest number of attendees (49,000) in its history.

Both a festival and a competition, GABF awards medals in 79 categories. I always look foreward to the list of winners, and especially for the terrific names that brewers give some of their beers. This year I came away disappointed for a couple of reasons. The Philadelphia area, with exception of a gold medal for Stoudt's Brewery, two medals for Triumph Old City and several for Iron Hill Brewpubs in the region, didn't have a great showing this year, medal-wise. And the names of the medal-winning brews this year were not very clever or imaginative. Ah well, creativity was spent on the beers, I guess.

Here is the list of winners from this year's competition. Hope some of your favorites took home some metal.

A Final Farewell

The early evening was swelteringly hot, but a crowd of us dutifully gathered for a Philly-area memorial to our departed friend and colleague Gary Bredbenner at the Grey Lodge on Tuesday night. Some of his IBM co-workers were in attendance, and a large number of Grey Lodge regulars, beer tour friends and Dangerous Dining Club eaters, all of whom knew Gary from just his comeraderie alone. We framed the picture above in a simple gold frame, sat it next to a big bouquet of zinnias and wildflowers that reminded me of Gary's often wild beard. We all grabbed pints of good beer and slices of rarely-seen Grey Lodge tomato pie, spinach and tomato pie and chicken quesadillas.

We started with a few moments of silence to remember our dear friend. Then I muddled and puddled through a kind of eulogy for Gary, read a surprise letter of condolence from Philly Mayor Michael Nutter, and before toasting him for the first of many times, let everyone know that the framed photo of Gary would be hung in the Grey Lodge, so that everyone could stop in and have a few good brews with him whenever they wanted. Class act that Scoats, keeping our friend's beaming, cherubic memory alive at his place for as long as possible.

Close friend Dan Cosper spoke next, telling a sweet and simple story of how he annointed Gary with the jokey monniker "Evil Fat Man." You could have heard a pin drop.

Beer writer Lew Bryson, read from his online report of Gary's funeral and wake in Danville and Berwick, PA, his voice cracking during the passages that brought tears to all of our eyes, unforgetable emotional moments.

And then we toasted him, toasted Gary for all we were worth, again and again, and ate the very good food of the Grey Lodge, the red curry mussels, red and white fries, cheesesteaks and hot wings, fish and chips and chicken fingers, burgers and fish sandwiches. My twins, Ben and Sophie ate and ran around and lightened the mood, sat on the bar, and even got a few pony rides on Scoats' and Katie Loeb's knees.

There were plenty of warm handshakes, hugs and kisses, and then we left, warmed by the very good food and drink, and especially by Gary's spirit in the Grey Lodge that night.

McGillin's Anniversary Ale

(photo courtesy of Drew Lazor)

I was very fortunate to be asked to a special tasting at McGillin's Olde Ale House in Philly yesterday, to sample the first test batch of the tavern's 150th Anniversary Ale, to be made by Stoudt's Brewing Co. in Adamstown, PA. McGillin's (if you didn't know already) is the 2nd oldest continually operating tavern in the US (McSorley's in NYC is the country's oldest, by just a hair), and one of my favorite places on earth to enjoy a good beer.

So Carol and Ed Stoudt were there, along with Chris Mullins Sr. and Jr., George Hummel from Mid-Atlantic Brewing News, Don Russell (Joe Sixpack) from the Phila. Daily News, food columnist Drew Lazor from the City Paper, and a bunch of other foodie writers from around town, as well as McGillin's outstanding PR guru Irene Baker, who organized the tasting.

Plenty of munchies were on hand (various crackers, cheeses, grilled bratwurst and knockwurst, baguette slices, spicy mustards), in the McGillin's tradition, as well as plenty of pitchers of water. Carefully they poured the first glasses: cloudy, golden, with a thick head of white foam. First sniff: sugary, like sugar cookies and sweet pie crust. First sip: surprisingly sweet as well, big, decent bite of hops, spicy effervescence and a long, long, dry finish. Started out like a sweet IPA, finished like a tart pilsner.

Carol Stoudt herself described the brew as "an unfiltered IPA with the malt character of a traditional English IPA. It contains Centennial and Amarillo hops and some mystery hops our brewer won't divulge." Aha! I love a good mystery!

Our assembled group all seemed to enjoy the beer quite a lot; George Hummell picked up on that sweet initial note, and pronounced it a very "dangerously delicious" beer. Most of us agreed. Drew Lazor imagined that he could put quite a few pints of the beer. I would have a hard time switching to another beer if I was drinking it.

Stoudt told us that our sample beer was just under 6% ABV, and has the long dry finish that she favors in her own favorite style of beer, a pilsner. She was especially interested in feedback for the beer, wanting it to be the right beer for an anniversary such as McGillin's. I think it just might be.

They intend to bottle the beer (a collectors' item), and hope it will be a beer people will enjoy and cellar, and are still working on the name. How about "McGillin's 150"?

Another Great Beer Week!

As usual I'm just a pinch late with this news, but hey, Jack Curtin got it first on his Liquid Diet blog yesterday. But what the hey, it's another great reason to drink great beer. So how about this: drink a new craft beer every day this week. I'm copying an idea that I read today on another blog, Tom Cizauskas' superb Yours For Good Fermentables. There he suggests we all drink a local craft beer every day this week, and if you can do it, by all means do so. Think globally, drink locally (damn, I am just a font of plagerism today..).

Well, as my renowned high school Greek teacher Frank Long used to say frequently in his classes at Scranton Prep, "Ancient history teaches us that nothing is new."

Drink some good craft beer this week. You deserve it.