The Great Hot Dog Cookoff

Natural born grillers.

In the history of the world, there have only been so many precisely perfect pairings. Tomato and basil, peanut butter and bananas, whiskey and pickle brine to name a few. Yet far and away, the most impeccable pairing ever known, has got to be hot dogs and beer.

Grilled over an open flame, the cased meat sizzles while you enjoy an ice cold beer. As much about the process as it is the complimentary flavors, the pairing is predicated on spectacle. Why else would it be a combination celebrated at civic centers and stadiums the world over?

Last weekend the pairing’s spectacle was put to test, as 23 contenders prepared their best dogs for the 6th Annual Great Hot Dog Cookoff at Kelso Brewery.

Hot dogs draw quite the crowd...

The Great Hot Dog Cookoff is organized and run by Kara Masi, benefitting the Food Bank for NYC. Conceived as a backyard cookoff between friends, it soon expanded to friends of friends, and ultimately the tradition outgrew it’s backyard venue. Luckily, lead sponsor Kelso Brewery, stepped in to play host. This year the event had the highest expected attendance of all time, and the organizers even got permits to close down the block.  Essentially you’re talking about a summer block party featuring obscene amounts of creatively dressed hot dogs and ice cold beer, fresh from the source.

I applied as a chef team the moment I found out about it. Charlie and I cook a lot, sure, but if there is one field in which we excel, it’s grilling. My first job was a line cook at a car hop, frying dogs on a flat top… heck, my first birthday party ever was a BBQ, and I’ve got the VHS to prove it. Meanwhile, Charlie’s working a grill almost every day, professionally or otherwise. We were pumped.

Brainstorming was tough though. I was stuck on doing something disgustingly indulgent, like a macaroni and cheese dog. I pitched a few ideas Charlie’s way, and he retorted with modeling a dog after a ballpark’s snack bar… peanuts, pretzels, booze, the whole nine. I loved the idea, and took no small pleasure in thinking up the name…

Yum. (photo credit: donuts4dinner.com)

The Cracker Jack Daniel’s Dog.

After a little workshopping, we settled on a fire grilled beef frank, topped with yellow mustard, homemade relish, and our own whiskey caramel peanuts… all served up on a pretzel bun. Pretzels are a stadium staple. It had to have a pretzel bun, without question. But I was left wondering… do we make 120 pretzel buns?

Then it hit me… Sigmund’s Pretzelshop. Well over a year ago Charlie and I were working on making our own pretzels. We tried a lot of different pretzels in the process, but by far our favorite joint was Sigmund’s on the Lower East Side. It was a happy discovery, and I’ve returned a number of times since then. Not only do they have the best pretzels in the city, but they serve a dog on a pretzel bun. So, I emailed Lina, Sigmund’s owner, telling her I wanted her buns (verbatim).

Despite not selling them apart from the dog, I was hoping she’d make an exception and sell us the buns wholesale. I pitched our dog concept, and was hoping she’d cut us a deal. Lina did us one better though, and GAVE us the buns for the competition. Unbelievably generous.

Carly freehanded this awesome sign for our booth.

Thursday and Friday  of last week were spent making batch after batch of whiskey caramel peanuts in my tiny kitchen. For those keeping track, Friday was the hottest day of the year… topping out at 104 degrees. Incidentally, the stove was turned to 250. It was hot, and while I certainly don’t recommend it, we had no choice. Comparatively, making two gallons of relish was easy.

The Brooklynauts & Sigmund crews, including owner, Lina, at right.

Saturday morning we met up with Brooklynauts’ photographer Will and headed up to Sigmund’s Greenpoint bakery. We had a great chat with Lina, and then made her an honorary Brooklynaut by presenting her with an official Brooklynauts t-shirt. It’s the best we could do… we still owe her big time. From there we hopped a car and headed straight for Kelso.

Charlie makes a really great sous-chef.

That’s when the fun began. Holding this thing at Kelso Brewery is amazing. It’s on a quiet side street, and the brewery’s got a roll up gate for easy beer access. For the event the coordinators shut down the block, and had 12 tents set up to house the chefs. We were paired up with Nick Suarez, of Food Experiment fame, whom we had met (formally) for the first time the week before. This was our first chance to really scope out the competition, and ultimately conclude that we had met our match… all 22 of them.

We were issued a Food Bank For NYC volunteer, Tracy, and she was amazing. From the moment we started to set up, whatever we needed, she was on it. Before we knew it they were lighting grills, and we only just had a chance to get our first beers as we realized they were letting people in. And so began a frenetic three hours of grilling.

That was a lot of delicious pretzel buns.

Charlie prepped the buns, and got some dogs over fire, as I prepared the toppings. Will took pictures and facilitated dog-topping, and Tracy kicked ass bringing us beer and food. In retrospect, I should have made sure to eat the food Tracy brought me. Not only because I regret missing out on the other chefs’ dogs, but also because:

HOT + NO FOOD + BEER + PICKLEBACK SHOTS = BLACKOUT.

Mise en place.

Did I forget to mention our pickleback station? See, we thought since the whole event was for a good cause, we should do our part… so we brought a sizable bottle of Jack Daniels and our homemade pickle brine. Looking back, we probably should have had a system to the picklebacks rather than just doing a shot with anyone who asked… and some people who didn’t.

Sous-chef AND barback. (photo credit: localbozo.com)

Between shots we managed to get a few hot dogs made and served, and the feedback was awesome. Lots of people said lots of nice things about our dog, which helped keep us going. The peanuts were popular, but people went crazy for Sigmund Pretzelshop’s bun. You know what else people went crazy for? The sprinkler. Yes, they had set up a sprinkler in the middle of the block, so when things got too hot to handle we’d just take a jog through to cool off. It was amazing.

Sprinkler party?

In my sweaty boozy haze, I failed to notice they had taken our token boxes until someone came up with a token to vote for us. Shortly thereafter, we were called over for the awards ceremony. Will, Charlie and I made our way… but due to circumstances beyond my control (heat, exhaustion, dehydration, whiskey) I don’t remember all that much beyond this. I do remember the first place Judge’s Choice was a lobster roll… and also that a lovely couple Charlie and I had made acquaintance with previously took first place in the People’s Choice with their Harlem version of a corn dog.

I vaguely remember being handed a bag full of goodies, which upon later inspection turned out to be TOTALLY AWESOME. Charlie and I, shirtless, gathered our stuff and collapsed on the sidewalk while we waited for a car. I’m glad we had wranglers (thanks Carly…) because by that point I was beat… in both the exhausted-sense, and the competitive sense.

The Brooklynauts are not afraid to be awesome. (photo credit: localbozo.com)

For once, it was totally impossible to feel jilted about not placing. We simply had too much fun. This was by far the best organized food competition we’ve ever been a part of. The biggest, too. And you know, it feels pretty good knowing that we did our part in helping to raise $12,000 for the food bank.

We’re already making plans for next year. We’ve got a great idea for a dog, and more importantly… an awesome name.

—

Thank you to everyone involved, but especially Lina and the crew at SIGMUND PRETZELSHOP! Visit them at 29 Ave. B (between 2nd and 3rd St.) and tell them the Brooklynauts sent you.

Check out the complete recap over at LocalBozo, who graciously let us use some of their shots.

Peep this great review from Katie at donuts4dinner, who took that stellar shot of our dog seen above.

See more pics on our Flickr.

Tags: bbq, brooklynauts, cook off, grill, hot dog, jack daniels, pickleback, shots