Heaven on a Bun

Last week I took a trip to Louisville, Kentucky to attend a fascinating meeting on becoming a program reviewer for the National Council on Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). It was swell! While I was there, I also took an hour or so to visit the famous Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. I learned more about baseball bats than I ever cared to know. I'm not a baseball fan. In fact, some of you readers know that I just very recently became a football fan. The main reason I went was because 1) it was in walking distance and 2) I thought my sons would think it was cool and 3) even though I don't know much about baseball, I thought it would be neat to find out how a bat gets made.

Turns out, the tour was interesting. But I won't go into the bat-making process here. You can check out the website. What really piqued my interest, though, was that while I was there, the factory was busy making bats for the New York Yankees' opening day. So baseball season must be upon us, I thought. Maybe I need to make a baseball dinner.

So I did. It turns out, baseball season started today, but I got a head start with my Monday dinner. Chili dogs--otherwise known in Stephen terms as heaven on a bun.

That dinner was actually a collaborative effort. You see, if Stephen's going to put anything in a hot dog bun, it's not going to be a Ball Park Frank or an Oscar Mayer weiner. Oh, no. He goes for the good stuff: Johnsonville brats. Cooked on the Big Green Egg, those fat sausages really are heaven on a bun! So if Johnsonville brats are for dinner, Stephen cooks them. And for the person in the household who occasionally likes to count Weight Watchers points (me), Stephen also cooked some Hebrew National low-fat all-beef franks. Only one point per frank. And when served on a light wheat bun, that's a Weight-Watcher friendly meal.

While Stephen operated the Egg, I remained inside and manned the stove. Oh, sure, I'm married to the winner of the People's Choice Award of the First Annual Homebuilders' Association Chili Cookoff. But I had to contribute in some way to the cooking of the dinner. So I made the chili.

I wish I could say I had a special chili recipe. I don't. I make it the easy way: a pound of ground beef, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of kidney beans, and a package of McCormick chili seasoning. But that's okay. When I set out to develop the Remler Menu, I never strived to cook everything from scratch. I just wanted it all to be different. And so far it has been.

Davis was at a LaCrosse match Monday night, so he missed out on his little piece of heaven. Lawson, however, ate up, having never eaten a chili dog! Can you believe it? He's almost eleven years old! What was he waiting for? Now he thinks chili dogs are swell!