Cast Iron Maiden

It’s Labor Day and that means it’s time to heat up the grill!  Usually when I think of gourmet grillables, hot dogs are not the first things that come to mind.  But back in June when I first cracked open that month’s Sunset Magazine to a feature on fancy-ing up your every day dog, I knew I had to give it a try.

This weekend we decided to try out The Surfer Hot Dog, a dog topped with grilled shrimp, avocado, spicy mayo, and slivers of nori.  We made a few modifications to the recipe, spiral-cutting the dogs (as had been recommended by our dear friend and cook extraordinaire Sara) and letting them hang out in some homemade teriyaki marinade prior to grilling.  CHOW has a handy video on the how and why of spiral-cut hot dogs.

We served these bad boys with some of our homegrown tomatoes.  I roughly diced the large tomatoes and cut the smaller ones in half, tossing them with a homemade vinaigrette (rice wine vinegar, lime juice, sriracha, peanut oil, soy sauce) and chopped fresh basil.  I let them hang out on the counter for an hour before serving so that the tomatoes could soak up the dressing.  Pro-tip: don’t ever put tomatoes in the fridge! The cool temps ruin their flavor.

Sometimes recipes from magazines can be a disappointing, but these were worth the extra effort.  The same article included recipes for four other topped hot dogs (1, 2, 3, 4).  I think we’ll be trying out the Cowboy soon; spicy mustard, barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, and bacon crumbles? Someone sure knows the way to my heart!

Happy Labor Day! Happy grilling!

The past few weeks have been just short of chaos at our house.  I attended the OLA annual conference in Bend in the end of April and did a poster session on some work I’ve been doing on using popular culture to teach information literacy.  The whole conference was a blur of engaging sessions, library-related swag, and watching late night TV with my friend and hotel roomie Amy.  Overall, it was a great experience and I would absolutely recommend participating in the poster session to any interested students.

That said, I would recommend that you do not wait until the last minute to create your poster board.  I believe that poster boards are actually portals to alternate dimensions where time moves at a much quicker rate.  You would be amazed at the amount of time it takes to make a mediocre poster board.  Hours and hours and hours.

Also don’t wait until the last minute because as you’re finishing up your poster board at 11pm in the hotel room, you might realize that you forgot to print off half of your reference list.  Not that I know this from experience…

OLA was also cool because Amy and I got to eat here:

Why, yes, that is an old double-decker bus that has been converted into a food cart called “The Codfather.”

The only problem with the OLA conference is that it was scheduled for the second half of my dead week in school, taking up very valuable studying time.  This term I was far less organized than usual; finals week this term definitely tested my studying abilities.  Miraculously, I survived!

Thankfully, that means that this past week has been my summer break.  My school program goes through the summer so as of today I’ve started new classes and my summer vacation is through.  I definitely milked the blessed seven days off of school for all they were worth with plenty of gardening and relaxing.

Summer vacation culminated with the annual Librarian Prom on Saturday night.  I made a giant batch of sangria based off a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.  The sangria was well received at the party but not so well received the next morning, from what I hear.

I wore too much eyeliner and my favorite dress: a red caftan with Egyptian motif and many, many sequins.

Thankfully, Nate and I weren’t too hung over after the prom so we were able to spend some time with our mothers the next day for mother’s day.  The weather was beautiful, so we cooked up a great dinner on the grill for my momma.

Grilled chicken with a curry yogurt sauce, grilled vegetable couscous, grilled broccoli with feta, and flat bread made on the (you guessed it) grill!  Nate was responsible for the broccoli and it was truly out of this world.  I’ll see if I can convince him to share the recipe.

What is it about eating outside that makes food taste so dang good?  My summer vacation may be over but I’m looking forward to more of this weather!