Hot DOG! Sahlen's Invades Manhattan

Imagine my surprise when my Niagara Falls-born cousin and I walked up to a seemingly random vendor at the Ninth Avenue Food Festival...who was selling SAHLEN'S HOT DOGS!!!!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED.

In case you are unfamiliar, I should tell you that Sahlen's hot dogs are:

1. The most delicious hot dogs in the history of the universe (and this is coming from a true hot dog connoisseur).

2. The official hot dog of the Buffalo Bills.

3. An upstate NY summer staple.

What makes Sahlen's hot dogs so delicious, you may ask? I'll tell you: they have a casing that tastes unbelievably spectacular when charred ever so gently on the grill.

And why did a random food stand sell them? The owner (let's call him "Red") lived in Buffalo! There he is at the grill in a sporty gingham shirt. Red said, "There's nothing like this around Manhattan, so I wanted to bring a little taste of Buffalo to town." Well, thank you for that, Red!

Here are some fascinating facts I learned from the Sahlen's website:

* The hot dogs are made from “Old Fashioned” smokehouse ham and turkey breast.

* They are available in 15 northeastern states.

* The company sponsors a professional race car team and a sports park that is home to the Western NY Flash women's soccer team.

* Sahlen’s has been producing premium quality meat products since 1869. (Apparently post-Civil War Americans liked to BBQ while rebuilding the country.)

* Every year, the average American consumes 60 hot dogs! (Not sure I buy this one, Mr. Joseph Sahlen!)

Not only was my perfectly grilled Sahlen's hot dog itself a delight, but Red came up with all sorts of fascinating hot dog combos. Forget the mustard and ketchup--get a BLT dog or a Journey Dog (any way you want it, that's the way you need it). I ended up eating a Baked Potato Dog, which was a hot dog in a giant chewy bun (I choose to believe it was a Wegmans bun) topped with sour cream, cheddar cheese, bacon, potato sticks, and chives. It was a masterpiece.

Sahlen's, and Red, I salute you both.

FreshDirect is My Hero!!!

 FreshDirect is a magical, magical thing.

For those of you who are scratching your heads and wondering what I'm talking about, I'll explain. FreshDirect is an online grocery store. You can select your groceries online and they'll be brought to your doorstep the very next day!

There are several outstanding things about this service--you can get fat without leaving the house, you can run errands in your pajamas, and you won't get those annoying wrinkly marks on your arms from carrying plastic bags from the store. But the most brilliant part about FreshDirect for those city dwellers who don't live in elevator buildings is this: The delivery people will climb every single step and bring groceries right into your apartment. This means that there's no need to lug 50 pounds of flour, milk, and eggs up to the fifth floor! It's a food pyramid miracle!!!

But FreshDirect isn't all hearts and flowers. There are some drawbacks. First of all, it's no Wegmans. But nothing is, really, so we can just move on from that one. Secondly, the entirety of your neighborhood grocery store isn't available to you online, and the items that are available are priced slightly higher than other grocery stores. Sometimes there are only one or two varieties of a particular item to choose from, and there are no generic or store brands. For example, until very recently, I was unable to purchase my beloved Sunkist orange soda through FreshDirect. And they still don't have squeezable Welch's jelly. But as I've learned on HGTV's Property Brothers (my new favorite show!), if your checklist is too long, you'll never find what you're looking for.

Now let's go back to that part about FreshDirect carrying my groceries all the way up my 97 steps. It truly is a wondrous thing. But is that convenience worth the higher prices? I ended up with this compromise: I use FreshDirect to purchase canned goods, soda, frozen food, and other annoyingly heavy items. I'd rather pay a little more to have someone else do the heavy lifting on those. Other than that, I shop at the grocery store.

I'd love to go crazy and order hundreds of dollars of FreshDirect supplies in one fell swoop, but the unfortunate thing is that no one in Manhattan has storage. Thus, I order just enough to fill my (one) cupboard, my sections of the fridge and the freezer, and my under-the-bed food crate. (It's true. I really have one.)

Yesterday, my cupboard was as bare as Mother Hubbard's. And now, thanks to FreshDirect, I could host a twelve-person dinner party.

If I had a dining room, that is.

And the Wegmans empire grows...

It's happening, people. Wegmans has invaded Massachusetts!

As a former Wegmans employee and a former resident of Massachusetts, I am filled with pride by this announcement. I mean, hey, I did love me some Stop & Shop when I lived in Chestnut Hill, but it's just not the same. Their store brands were only average. The prepared foods were nothing to write home about. There was no bulk candy section.

But now that Wegmans has opened the doors to a new store (with "employees twisting and turning their hands, legs and torsos to spell out Wegmans, just as the Village People did with their hit song, 'YMCA.'"), Massachusetts will never be the same.

To read more about my warm and fuzzy Wegmans feelings, click here.

P.S. Massachusetts, I'm totes jeal.

Let's Go to the Movies!

"I'm at the movies."
Pause.
"I SAID I'm at the movies!"
Longer pause.
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding."
Exasperated pause.
"MY. BIG. FAT. GREEK. WEDDIIIIIIIING!!!"

Sometimes bad movie behavior occurs next to good people. A rather large woman to my left whisper-screamed the above conversation into her cell phone at a theater on 42^nd Street in the summer of 2002, which is also known as The Summer I Decided to Soak Up Air Conditioning at Movie Theaters Instead of Buying an Air Conditioner For My Bedroom. As you can imagine, I entered the theater feeling hot and bothered, and listening to the chatterbox yapping to my left didn't help matters any. Unfortunately, the theater was completely packed, and since I thought she might sit on me if I informed her that the majority of the audience would appreciate it if she hung up the phone, I moved to the only other available seat. In the third row.

You see, the general rule of thumb in Manhattan is as follows: If you decide to do something—anything—chances are that at least 2,000 people have thought of the same idea. Thus, the movie going experience is significantly more difficult than it is in the suburbs.

As a high school student, I would roll into the movie theater parking lot in one of my parents' matching Taurus station wagons, clutching the ticket I bought for $4.25 with my Wegmans employee discount, about two minutes before showtime. I would find an empty row of seats, which generally wasn't difficult. I could put my feet up on the seat in front of me, place my coat on the seat next to me, and generally stretch out, knowing I had at least a three-seat radius to myself.

In Manhattan, however, you can take the subway early to show up an hour before previews with your $13.50 in hand, and still be shut out of a movie. This happened to me twice with Angels & Demons. (I know, I know...I'm not sure why I cared enough about Angels & Demons to try twice.) You can buy your ticket online to be assured of a spot, of course, but because movie tickets are so astronomically expensive, my staunch bargain-hunting brain won't allow me to pay the extra $1.50 surcharge. Even if you manage to get to the theater early enough to score a ticket, you must arrive a good half hour early to score a seat. And don't even dream that the seat next to you will be empty—that'll never happen.

If you've arrived early, purchased a ticket, and found the perfect seat, you're still subjected to the very vocal whims of a host of New Yorkers. I'm not sure why they enjoy commenting on whatever action is happening on screen, but comment they do. And loudly. At times, it feels like being at a live taping of The Maury Povich Show. For example, when the trailer for Tangled appeared before some romcom I was seeing, the dude behind me, who had obviously been dragged there by his girlfriend, yelled, "Daaaaaauuuumnnn! That little girl's hair is looooooooong!"

Actually, my most perfect movie going experience happened when I went to see Tangled several months later. A friend and I went to a tiny theater that was so far east it was practically in the East River. It was a weekday at 2pm. And for two magical hours, we were the only people in the theater! I felt like Annie when Daddy Warbucks took her to see Camille at Radio City. It was heaven.

I'm fairly certain that was a one in a million experience.

Given that movie going in the city isn’t quite the same magical experience that it is in the suburbs, why do we go at all? Well, my cousin and I went to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. this weekend. Though we were surrounded by people on all sides, it happened to be a respectful crowd. On the escalator ride out of the theater (movie theaters in NYC are tall, not wide), she looked out the giant window onto insane, noisy 42^nd Street and said, “Oh! I totally forgot we were in New York.”

And that, my friends, is why we go to the movies.