Ailantha
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Searching For A Dog

12/16/2014

2 Comments

 
...Continued From yesterday:
  It was Friday afternoon in downtown Chicago, well past lunch time, and Tom and I had decided that what we wanted was a real Chicago-style hot dog. 

Picture
Now, we'd seen hot dog joints galore, like this one, while walking around Bucktown,

    But now we were downtown.
   
So we turned off Michigan Avenue and started walking, searching for a hot dog spot.
    We walked up one street and down another,
    

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
…we passed two Potbellys, two Paneras,  three Dunkin' Donuts and who knows how many Starbucks,  but we could not find a hot-dog place.
    Which led us to conclude that Chicagoans love their coffee more than their hot dogs.
     When we’d zig-zagged our way almost to Union Station - which is about a mile from Michigan Avenue if you walk a straight line -  I came up with the idea of looking inside Union Station for a hot dog stand.  After all, I reasoned, the train station would be perennially  full of tourists who’d want to try a real Chicago hot dog, right?
     So we continued on to Union Station,

Picture
...walked around a bit, turned a corner, and struck gold!:
Picture
      A real Chicago-style hot dog stand!  
     Or, we figured,  as close as you could get at a train station food court.
     No matter, at that point whatever they had was close enough for us, we were famished.
    So we both ordered a Chicago-style hot dog combo for $7.59 and were each given a jumbo-sized dog topped with tomato, onions, a dill pickle spear, spicy green peppers, mustard, celery seed, and some amazingly bright green relish,

Picture
    Was it a good dog?
                Well, you know when you’ve got a hankering for something and when you finally get it it hits the spot so sublimely that you are saturated in satisfaction afterwards?
    That’s how Tom and I felt after our Chicago-style hot-dog and French fry luncheon in Union Station.

Picture
Picture
accompanied by  a drink and a pile of  hot fries.
    The next morning during breakfast with Miguel (Claire had to work), the conversation turned to Tom’s and my nearly fruitless quest the day before for a Chicago-style hot dog.
    When we told Miguel how we'd finally found a Chicago dog at Gold Coast Dogs in Union Station he was skeptical as to whether a dog sold at a stand in Union Station could be the real Chicago deal.  He asked us what was on our dogs and I listed the ingredients:  tomato, onion, peppers, a pickle slice, mustard, relish, and celery seed with a celery seed bun.
    Miguel conceded that those were indeed the proper ingredients, but he asked me to describe the relish.
    I told him that the relish was, as a matter of fact, this strange shade of bright Kelly green, a color I’d never before seen on relish nor too often anywhere else in nature.  But Miguel said that the bright green relish is, in fact, a hallmark of a real Chicago dog.  I asked him why the relish was bright green.  He didn’t know why. He, like all Chicagoans, just knew it had to be.
    Finally he asked me about the peppers,  which I described as sort of light olive drab  green in color and bullet shaped.  This was also the correct pepper, called the sport pepper by Chicagoans, as in (according to Miguel using the authentic Chicago patois),  “Yeah. Lemme get a coupla two tree sport peppers on dat der, guy."
    (Sigh).  Those were sure some good dogs.    
2 Comments
Romaine
12/16/2014 08:24:11 am

Sounds like you had the quintessential Chicago culinary experience.

Reply
Patti
12/16/2014 10:03:37 am

Well, it was a darn good dog!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    "Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    or from
    The Book Loft
    of German Village,
    Columbus, Ohio
    Picture
    Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    RSS Feed

    I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
    hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers.

    Categories

    All


























































































Proudly powered by Weebly