In a concerted effort to avoid starting on Earl’s and my taxes, my assistant Kyle and I went to lunch. We’ve gone to lunch more frequently lately, and you can draw your own conclusions.
For Kyle, lunch was a “Chicago style hot dog,” although we didn’t go all the way to the Windy City to get one. That would be far too serious a method of procrastination. Instead, we went to Mr. Goody’s 3, a new restaurant about three miles down the road from our house.
Just what constitutes a Chicago style hot dog, as opposed to a regular hot dog? There are criteria, as anyone who’s eaten one in Chicago knows. The bun must have poppy seeds on it; the dog itself must be one hundred percent beef; it must be smothered with relish, mustard, raw onions, a tomato slice, and pickle, and Serrano peppers, the r-e-a-l-l-y hot ones. Nobody eats the peppers, but for authenticity’s sake they must be there. The purist wants celery salt too.
Kyle is doing market research to determine if any restaurant outside the city limits of Chicago makes an authentic hot dog. So far, he’s visited South Bend, Gary, and Indianapolis in the State of Indiana. He’s also been to St. Joseph, Michigan; Beloit, Wisconsin; Iowa City, Iowa; and Urbana, Illinois.
“I think there’s a Mason-Dixon Line affect going on here,” Kyle said, as he bit into his Mr. Goody’s 3 entry. “Every place in Indiana got it wrong, mostly because they put catsup on the dog. That’s tantamount to committing a mortal sin. But most other places north of Indiana got it closer to the mark.”
Iowa, in Kyle’s estimation was closest to the ideal, although it omitted the tomatoes. Beloit, on the other hand, got it absolutely right. So I asked Kyle what the best Chicago Chicago-style hot dog was.
“It’s at Grand and Kedzie, but I can’t remember the name of the restaurant,” he answered. It just goes to show that the food itself is far more important. Besides, if Kyle enlists me to join his research team we might be able to avoid doing taxes until April 13.
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