grill

One result of participating in a cook-off is that you become suddenly aware that there are kind of a lot of cook-offs going on year-round. Summer is the season of grilling, so yesterday I attended the 4th Annual Great Hot Dog Cookoff hosted at the Kelso Brewery in Brooklyn, benefiting City Harvest. I’ll admit: I didn’t stay for the whole event, as they were running behind and I had places to be that evening.

But I did sample several of the hot dog creations, including “The French”, served on a croissant with blueberry and raspberry preserves and pepperjack cheese (surprisingly tasty) and the “Displaced Wall Street Executive” dog, which had so many ingredients I couldn’t begin to list them, but most importantly, chili, bacon, and some kind of creamy sauce. The messiest by far, but very, very tasty. And how could I leave out Brooklyn Beer Experiment co-organizer Nick Suarez’s “Corniest Dog in Brooklyn”, topped with (duh) corn, plus 20 other ingredients including cotija cheese, bacon, and a squeeze of lime. It had a nice kick to it, and as evidenced here, I love corn, so it was an obvious winner to me.

I will say that one drawback was that every time the dogs came out (the contestants went in rounds) it was like someone had let the rabid, flesh-eating zombies out of their cages and there were fresh victims on the table. I have never seen so many people get so aggressive trying to grab hot dogs. As a result, I didn’t get any good pictures of actual, prepared hot dogs. I was too afraid of getting my arm ripped off.

And finally, I have no idea who won. For that, you’ll have to visit The Great Hot Dog Cookoff web site in a day or two to find out.

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