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From guilty pleasure to acceptable

Posted at 1:45 PM on June 27, 2008 by Sareen Dunleavy Keenan (2 Comments)

I have to admit, I love a good hot dog. And no, I do not mean the occasional ball park splurge, I mean a hot dog from a true, great butcher. Natural casings filled to bursting with who knows what. Bring em on.

This is not the reason that I live down the street from a hot dog stand, but the Realtor tried to convince us that there was no better reason for purchasing the house. I liked the natural woods, he liked the hot dogs and pizza. Strange match.

Anyway. I have been buying my hotdogs at Everret's (Cedar and 38th) and sneaking out the door, lest anyone find out I am making room for these foods into my diet. I am not ashamed of the meat, but I was too scared to ask these guys what and where it came from. I know this seems strange being that it is central to the entire project. We are supposed to find out where all our food came from right?

For some reason the very friendly butchers in their old fashioned paper hats scared me from asking. I was afraid they would think I was too fancy for their little store. I was afraid they wouldn't know, or they would tell me something that I didn't want to know, making me feel even worse about my hot dog eating habits.

Last weekend, I took the plunge. We were out biking (me quite pregnant and he toting the baby tailor) and I was a little hot and a little tired. It was a busy time at the meat counter and there were about 6 men working. I was thinking water, but I said "where is your met from?" I figured that with the line and everything, they couldn't go into too much detail, positive or negative, about where the meat was from. If it was local, we could get more details on a quiet day. If it wasn't, or they were annoyed with the question, it was busy and they might not remember me. This could have been what made the question finally pop out of my mouth.

And good thing it did. He said: "Well, for those, I cannot tell you for sure, but they didn't come from more than say... 500 miles away. I blinked.

"What did he say?" I asked Brendan. He laughed, thinking it was stupid all along that I wouldn't ask them.

That is right. According to the man at their counter, all of their meet comes no more than about 500 miles away. He said "no further than Iowa, that is for sure." Are you kidding me? What was I waiting for? Why was a shy in this small humble store? With this information I can now eat my hot dog proudly and move those purchases over into the local column. Who knew?

By the way, they do sell more than just tubed meats. The counter runs the length of the store and it is full of traditional and old fashioned cuts and preparations. Brendan is trying to get me to try the roast beef loaf which appears to be simply pressed tidbits of a roast they were carving. I am still a bit skeptical. But when I do try it, I can know that it is local food from an independent store.

Comments (2)

I too love a good hotdog. And Everret's are the best. But another hot dog to check out is Thousand Hills Cattle dogs at Kowalski's. They are local, grass fed, all beef, and, I think, organic. And they taste good.

Posted by Kassie | June 27, 2008 4:48 PM

I agree about Everret's - they are good! Out here in Boise, though, the big thing is chorizo - and the best is done by the local Basque population using lamb. Very, very good!

I'm glad to hear that Everret's is at least regional and not importing from Chicago or Coney Island....

Posted by Scott | July 2, 2008 11:36 AM