The Family *roll

As many of you know, I loves me some hot dogs. I know how they’re made. I even watched a show once about it. And I still love them. They’re a bit of Americana I’ve adopted whole hog (so to speak). Eating hot dogs is wildly inconsistent with my semi-firm commitment to eating ethical meat. But as Emily pointed out, in a moment of beautiful sophistry, since hot dogs are made from animal by-products I am not supporting the meat industry by eating them. I’m just cleaning up its crap. Indeed, I am doing the environment a favor. Emily: I love you.

I was most pleased to learn, then, that Northfield has a dedicated hot dog shop: Tiny’s Hot Dogs. In addition to serving all manner of dogs, they also have $1 soft-serve ice cream and root beer on tap. We’ve been to Tiny’s a fair amount since we got here. Interestingly, Tiny’s used to be a place of some infamy in Northfield. It was a pool hall that sold porn and tobacco products, and was the scene of various skirmishes and all round Northfield seediness.

It no longer sells porn. But it does still sell a wide array of tobacco products. And candy. Lots of candy. The owner and I bonded some weeks ago talking about Chicago-style hot dogs. It really sticks in his craw when people don’t know what’s on a Chicago dog. Or, even worse, when he hears of other hot dog vendors that sell “Chicago dogs” that are not Chicago dogs (they might, for example, have cheese or, even worse, ketchup on them). So meeting a former Chicagoan who knows Chicago dogs really made his day. And Tiny’s makes mine at least once a week.