h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wanted to start a separate journal entry for a sillier topic than recent ones.

One of K's friends is a professor at a law school here in downtown Chicago. Each year, he raffles off tickets to students and takes them on a driving- and eating- tour of some of the area's best and most cleverly named hot dog joints. Places like Dog Day Afternoon (which is a few blocks away from my childhood home), The Weiner's Circle, and Mustard's Last Stand, for the silly names; Superdawg and a couple others which epitomize the Chicago Style dog.

This time, K has been asked to drive the tour van. I think he gets a groovy t-shirt, and obviously he'll get all the hot dogs he can muster. In preparation, he's avoided meat almost entirely for the last month. I'm pretty sure the only meat he's had were the dozen chicken wings he had last Monday. We don't want any of his remaining kidney stones to get any bigger.

So, he was talking about it at work, and his boss has actually offered to let him use a vacation day tomorrow to rest up for the big event. And I thought *my* boss was cool (he is, actually).

Out of curiosity...what *does* epitomise the Chicago Style dog?


I'm planning kushari tonight - Egyptian rice+pasta+lentils with a spicy tomato sauce and caramalised onion topping. It seems the Egyptians use macaroni for the pasta - but somehow I got it into my head that it was meant to be vermicelli and bought accordingly. Don't know where I got that from. I do know that it's combined with rice in a lot of Arabic dishes, though.

A Chicago Style dog is nestled snugly in a steamed poppy seed bun, and is served with bright green pickle relish, diced onion, yellow mustard, a pickle slice, sliced tomato and cucumber, and a sprinkling of celery salt. Sport peppers (little pickled hot chilies) are optional.

Some places- even some of the better ones- don't put the tomato and cucumber on, though.

No one over the age of 12 is allowed, under any circumstances, to put ketchup on the dog. It's a city ordinance or something. Seriously, though... many places don't even offer ketchup as a condiment, even though many people like ketchup on their fries.

The kushari sounds delicious. I'm making more of that caldo-verde style stew with the white beans, kale, and soy chorizo tonight. That stuff is damn good.

'Sport peppers'? Sound good!

While investigating kushari for evidence of vermicelli (where *did* I get that idea?), I came across a site you'll like, with tons of vegan links:
http://www.toliveandeatinla.com/2008/anthony-bourdain-versus-vegans/

Two blog names that I liked (can't see them from here, though):

Hezbollah Tofu

Yo soy.

I subscribed to Hezbollah Tofu's feed till they stopped updating the blog. That one came about because of that idiot Bourdain comparing vegans to terrorists.

Yo Soy sounds cool. I can't view blogs from work, either, but I'll remember to check it out from home, tomorrow night while K is out scarfing hot dogs I'll peruse the veggie recipes.

Sport peppers:

http://www.viennabeef.com/products/item.asp?PRODUCT_ID=21

I'm sure they're not the only brand, either.

Want me to send you some, sometime? If the postal service allows it, that is.

I saw those,

They look similar to ones I've had before. Thin-ish, tough skins, rather than thick and soft like jalapenos? There's a USAnian brand that's sold here and there.

Two of my regular chillis:

http://www.odysea.com/shop/product.php?id=38

http://mybrands.com/Product.aspx?pid=7512

Yeah, they're thin and tougher than jalapenos. Light-ish green.

My dad used to use a splash of the brine from sport peppers to thin out really thick mustard so he could move it from the glass jar into a squirt bottle. It gave it a nice little kick.

Would you beleive- I never actually buy pickled chilies? I do have bags of them (red, green Thai, jalapeno, habanero) in the freezer, though.

A3100168 Opening line.

I love that entry.

I love anything pickled. I often get cravings for pickled food, in fact. But I just never buy pickled chili peppers. Though I do have a bit of giardinara from way back...

I never did post back. K had a great time. He got a nifty t-shirt, met the owners of most of the establishments they patronized. Some of them gave souvenirs- magnets, post cards, etc. They also visited the Vienna Beef factory.

K ate SEVEN freaking hot dogs. Some of which were served with fries. I didn't hear him come in (I crashed early) but did wake up in the wee hours to a hot-doggy sort of belch wafting about.

I hope he appreciated the geometry and theology of the occasion.

PC, as always, mistress of the mystery threads on here!

Vegans = terrorists???, does this mean i can write "mainly Terri or Wrist" on my CV?

The only type of i imagine would fit into & long bun would be a dachshund, which i imagine would be considered Cruel & Unusual punishment & definitely Not P.C.

As for being rudely awoken by meaty belches, i shall leave you with Wise Words from an English School Playground:

*"Pardon me for being rude; it was not me; it was my food.

Pardon me from the bottom
of me heart; if it had 'ave come the other way, it would have been a fart!"*

Whilst we are on the subject of bottoms; i saw a great sign on a cardboard box today:

*BOTTOM
Opposite Side Up*

Well;yes; logical really innit? But by the time you've read that sign

zdt

On a different theme...

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/renowned_hoo_ha_doctor_wins_nobel?utm_source=most_pop_pop

Yeah, I got that one in my email last week (I subscribe to their daily email updates as well as the paper itself) and posted it on Facebook. I found it especially funny as it reminded me vaguely of the seemingly less than competent woman who installed my IUD last month.

Edward, regarding the vermicelly deal, I'm pretty sure you're in the right - my mother is of Egyptian origin, and those little noodles, called Sha'reya (from Sha'r, hair, so I suppose you might translate it as 'hairies' ), are very common in dishes - either cooked like rice or mixed with rice. I don't think I've heard of a dish where macarony and rice are cooked together, although I am definitely no big expert.
The dish you described is not exactly familiar to me, but sounds a lot like Mejaddarah (or Megadderah, in the Egyptian dialect version), except for the tomato sauce. Everything else sounds quite similar, so I guess this is some kind of variation on the basic idea.

I thought that Mejaddarah was the name used elsewhere...but, yes, the same thing.

In the end, I used both rice and macaroni. What I did was I cooked the lentils and pasta in advance (cooked the macaroni, then threw in the vermicelli when it was done). Then I cooked the rice...which I'd first rinsed and left to dry on a plate in the oven...then fried up a wee bit of onion in olive oil until browned. Then a little butter and sauteed the rice...then cooked it in stock.

When the rice was done, I assempled it all in the pan and stirred to warm through.

And very tasty it was, too,

I meant both vermicelli and macaroni.

Interesting!

The way my mum makes Mejaddarah is with rice only (I've also heard of it made with Burghul - a sort of shredded wheat, I guess you can call it? - but not with any type of pasta; however, there are many variations of all those dishes). About 50%-50% rice and lentils. She soaks the lentils for a few hours, then par-cooks them in some water - don't know how much exactly, but enough to cover them, and then some - and in a frying pan on the side, she fries some onions in quite a lot of oil (the oil is necessary for cooking the rice later). Then she adds the onions to the lentils, adds uncooked rice, some more water if needed, and spices (salt, pepper, cumin, I think maybe a little baharat), covers the pot and lets it all cook together. It is served with onion fried in olive oil until dark and partially crispy, and sometimes we put some yoghurt on top. It's very very good.