Food Nerd Friday: Hot Dogs

My almost sincere apologies for two back-to-back food posts, but today is Food Nerd Friday... I do have other topics to cover including Bruges, Dresden and it's about time to take you into my new home town a little further as well. Those will be coming up and if today goes as planned, I may have Vienna to add to the Road Trip list as well. But today, making a hot dog tops the list.

   Just a walk away from our apartment, I finally discovered my grocery store. It's situated right next to a car dealership and the building looks like the White House, so until this week I had never put two and three together. Well, Alma is my spot in the world that makes everything right. The store is beautiful and realizes the important things in life. Not the biggest of stores, every inch is utilized properly. The meat case runs the longest of any other in the store and is a divine sight. Then there is a large display of cheeses, the aromatics of one of them will knock you to the floor, I know of one man in the world that would appreciate it but I'm afraid Molly would come hunt me down... As would the postman for sure this time!

   A whimsical aisle of yogurts that includes Pots de Cremes in little terracotta pots (La Creme a la Vanille sur lit de Caramel, have you ever heard anything more romantic?). Extensive selections of chocolate, teas and coffee - still no coffee filters (our supply ran out and we cannot find them anywhere..).. A beautiful corner area composed of wines and vodkas. I giggled when I noticed the California section was composed primarily of Carlos Rossi. Other prominent selections were from New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and Africa. The focus of quality seems to be more focused on the vodka.

  I finally introduced Troy to my new love affair of a market yesterday.. He was captured by the hot dog buns and having no plans for dinner, we grabbed buns and dogs. You will be glad to know that the package counts differ here as well - three buns to a package and four dogs to a pack.. A stop by the deli and we were set.

   To make a hot dog here, you insert the dog into the pre-hollowed bun. Then bake at 230°C for a couple-few minutes. The exterior of the bun crisps up and the juices from the dog do magic for the inside of the bun.

  
   In Poland, you should have no less than three types of salad on your plate. We selected beet, pasta (with corn, broccoli and parsley) and carrot salads (surowka z burakow, salat makaron i brokul, and surowka amore mio). And a rare occurrence, the pasta salad had a nice light coat in mayonnaise, versus it primarily being a mayonnaise salad with some pasta. Delightful.

   Our kielbaski selection had such a well-rounded and meaty depth of flavor that this was a wonderfully grown-up hot dog. I immediately began to fret about how I would get a life supply of these buns back home with me. As if not served in this manner, I don't know if I could ever again eat another hot dog.