the last six weeks or so have been in a word - bananas. each time i think we might be past the clouds, we seem get inundated with the next wave of crazy and misfortune. thankfully in my twenty-something years i've begun to recognize this as a pattern; when life starts disassembling, it's in preparation for major changes. usually, in a bigger and better form than what we previously planned on. (and while this knowledge doesn't necessarily make things much easier, i do appreciate that there are people out there battling much worse problems than ours!) life is a cycle, and there are no highs without the lows, right?

meanwhile, summer in the valley is still going strong, so before we dive into autumn i thought i'd share a version of hot dogs we had recently. this started when the hubs saw a graphic of a chicago-style hot dog, which we adapted ever so slightly to valley-style using local ingredients.

here's the original:

and here's what we did:

| ingredients |

hot dog buns (no poppyseeds for us - a) i couldn't find them and b) they just end up in my teeth)
all-beef hot dog
yellow mustard
sweet relish
sliced farmer's market tomatoes
diced white onion
sliced jalapenos (instead of sport peppers!)
celery salt, to taste

we omitted the kosher dill pickle spear. I think relish + spear is too much redundant pickle in one food, even if they do have varying flavors.

| method |

cook the hot dogs according to package directions, and toast the hot dog buns (optional). assemble with the listed toppings.