Hot Diggity Dog

Rachel: One of Andrei's favorite foods is hot dogs but my family has its own history of hot dog love.

The Fourth of July is a great opportunity to watch the annual match up between Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest and each year you can find my family tuned in to ESPN to cheer on Joey! One year my family had a match up of our own -- for the title of "World's Greatest Hot dog." We taste tested many hotdogs and rated each on its color, texture, flavor, etc. and awarded a winner.

A few years ago on my visit to Los Angeles, Ryan and Jess took me to Pink's Hot dogs. Pink's has been a LA fixture for almost 100 years and has many hot dogs named after celebrities including the Martha Stewart Dog and the Rosie O'Donnell Dog. Ryan, Jess, and I each got different hot dogs so we could try as many as possible!

On my most recent visit to New Orleans, Andrei and I ate lunch at a Lucky Hot Dog stand -- a NOLA fixture -- I loved the loaded dog with chili and onions, especially while eating it surrounded by the great music of NOLA!

My favorite hot dog however is found close to home. Each Christmas Eve, our family and a few select friends would head to Coney Island in Scranton for hot dogs. Here a Texas wiener sells for just $2 and is topped with their special chili sauce. My favorite part of the Coney Island experience is the owner, Ted, stands just inside the door at his grill greeting each customer as they walk in the door. His forearm, yes his forearm, is usually full of buns and dogs all lined up in the row while he spoons on the chili sauce and then sends each dog onto a plate and onto the customer.

So here's to all the great hot dogs of the world -- you may not be the healthiest food in the world, but you have created many food memories in my heart!

Andrei: While I love the Luckydog I'll now tell you the bitter sweet tale of my favorite Hot Dog! It was at Disney World my Sophomore year in college, the sight of my absolute favorite family vacation up to that point. We had stopped at some random excellent eatery in Epcot center. (For those that haven't been to Disney it's, dare i say it, A-maze-to-the-zing! Every worker, from the street sweeper, to the tour guides, to the food vendors are there making your experience Magical. (So magical I used a capital letter to show how deeply I feel about it. (Also another side note, that vacation was the sight of one of my favorite memories ever, it includes Andy Garcia. Ask me about it sometime! Disney at Christmas is an experience. And before you ask, NO, I'm not hired by the Disney conglomerate to puff them up, this is just my humble opinion. Of course things are expensive there, but the food is of the highest quality and the service is impeccable too, not Emeril's but still...) So anyway, we go to this little eatery with nice workers literally dancing and singing around you as you eat. I of course order a hot dog, the biggest and most beautiful I've seen, to date. It's a foot long but very thick in circumference as well. So I'm looking at this amazing specimen of hot dog and and confused as to where the condiments are and after an attempt or two of looking for said condiments, I give up the search and eat my hot dog sans any garnishing, it's enjoyable but not infrequently have I thought about how much I would have enjoyed the hot dog WITH condiments. As I walked to the garbage can to throw away my wrapper and little cardboard tray. I spied THE CONDIMENT BAR, with every conceivable condiment on it. How could I have missed it? I'm not exactly sure, but it still haunts me to this day.

Maybe I'll get a Luckydog tomorrow to ease my remorse.