Blaaaarrg; Or, Why I Don't Eat Cheap Hot Dogs

Michele was craving hot dogs the other day. I wasn't, so I made the short-sighted mistake of getting the cheapest chicken-and-pork Sugardale hot dogs that the convenience store was carrying. They were two-for-one and I thought, well, I'll make them for friends sometime so I might as well get two. Oh Lord.

I'd hate to make a generalization that hot dogs are nasty, god-forsaken amalgamations of road kill and petroleum by-product because not all of them are. There are some really good ones out there. I prefer all-beef franks, or polish dogs if I can get a decent one (the ones at the Costco counter are not). My favorite are from J-Dawgs in Provo. The quality dog, beef or polish, combined with their signature sauce is just delectable.

I happen to have a bottle of that sauce that Michele brought home for me from Utah a couple months ago, so this afternoon when I was hungry I thought, well, I'll have a hot dog. Slathered in J-Dawgs sauce it can't be that bad. Can it?

Yes. Yes it can.