I made hot dogs over the weekend.
Not to celebrate 4th of July, a day that’s raised more questions than answers for me in the past decade. But in 2020, like an illegal firework, it exploded brightly, revealing nothing but smoke. It was smoke all along, I just didn’t smell it. Anyways.
So I made hot dogs, but the $1 buns and $1 dogs felt grossly American in all the worst ways (the very ways, some people would argue, are the best). So I took the long road (someone retrieve me off my high horse, pls). I wanted to face the actual work of making, because despite what supermarket shelves will tell you, there’s nothing easy about anything.
I made the buns from scratch using lumpy Vitamin D milk, and learned it was still good, just that the fat was separating. I ground mustard seeds in my coffee grinder and learned about how timing matters, when adding ingredients, to the final spiciness of your mustard. I used that mustard to make mayonnaise—imagine me, dripping oil into a whirling stand mixer for half an hour, asking “is this what emulsifying looks like?” every thirty seconds. I used that mayonnaise to make cole slaw, cutting whole heads of cabbage with my newly sharpened knives (my fingers can vouch—they are sharp). I made sugary hibiscus lemonade from rock-hard lemons, and realized fully why my parents diluted their Gatorade when they were my age. Too sweet.
And after years of wanting to do this very thing, I peeled and boiled carrots, marinated them, and grilled them just like regular ol’ hot diggity dogs. To my delight, I did not manage to entirely ruin one thing. (Ah, okay, I did purchase Kroger-brand ketchup. There simply wasn’t time to slow cook tomatoes; I will do better).
This was part of my answer to the question I’ve been facing this week: “what does rest look like to me?” Apparently, it means opening up so many tabs of recipes on my phone that there’s no time for Instagram. It means learning how to clean up after myself as I go, how to ration my kitchen counter space, how to move utensils around like I’m playing a giant game of culinary Tetris.
It was all so pointless, but I was fed. I was happy. I was rested. So, I suppose I should ask myself:
Isn’t that the point?
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, eat one of your leftover lumpy milk buns, and look up a recipe for another condiment.