6th Annual Hot Dog Tour

HOT DOG TOUR RESUMES 
AFTER A ONE YEAR HIATUS IN 2020 DUE 
TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

With Covid-19 still causing havoc and tragedy in people's lives, we cautiously took to the road for our 6th hot dog tour. This is being written from memory on 7/8/2022 because I didn't have it recorded in our hot dog binder. However, my memory is still operating at 85% capacity so this should be a pretty good summary. LOU Tom would say differently about my memory but what does he know?

Beth organized this hot dog tour and an executive decision was made on 6/18/2022, that Alan does such a fantastic job (as you will read in the 2022 summary), that henceforth, he will be the hot dog tour planner. Beth graciously turned over the honors to him!

We started out in Mendon, MA at Larry Joe's N.E. Fire Pit. Why write my own account when you can Google an article that does a much better job. Here it is:

MENDON (CBS) - Less than an hour from Boston, you can order an award-winning hot dog with some ties to history. And Larry Joe's New England Fire Pit in 

Mendon is much more than a food truck.

"It's an all brisket, finely ground, old fashion German recipe, natural casing hot dog," Larry Joe told WBZ-TV.

The half-pound hot dogs are basted in a special mix of apple sauce and brown sugar, then cooked to perfection over a hickory wood grill, all while Larry Joe plays the fire pit blues on a keyboard in the truck. It's an experience he describes as "showcase cooking."

"If you go to a food truck, there's a little tiny window and there's some people inside working hard and diligently to make your food, but you can't see it, you're not a part of it. Here you can see your food from beginning to end and nothing goes below the counter," Joe explained.

 "And that's why we call this a paradigm shifting hot dog, 'cause as soon as you bite into it you realize you're on different turf. You're in different territory," Joe said.

"It came out of the White House in 1939 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt served hot dogs to the King and Queen of England and all the cooks in the White House of April of that year were Southern descendant, slave descendant men, Black men and they know how to make food taste good 'cause we've been barbequing and cooking cheap meat for a long time. Take those processes and put them on some good meat, Oh my God, this is what you get."

If you're wondering how Larry Joe got his hands on the presidential recipe, he says former White House cooks went on to work on transcontinental trains serving meals to first class passengers. Those cooks shared the recipe with a young Framingham man named Ezra Anderson who worked on board the train as a porter.

Anderson sold hot dogs successfully in Newmarket Square for years and passed the recipe down to Larry Joe before he died in 2015.

"He learned directly from cooks in the White House. They told him this is how we make hot dogs for the president," Joe recalled.

But people don't just come for the hot dogs, they come for a good time and to see —the man who makes them.

 "He has fanatical fans. We really love to come and get the hot dogs and be here and hang out with Larry Joe. He makes the whole thing really," said Andrew Bennett, a Larry Joe fanatic.

"It's hard not to get a big old hot dog with everything on it and shove it in your face. They are huge, like as big as your head," fan Cindy Miller told WBZ. Miller and her ukulele band The Unlikely Strummers even wrote a song about how much they love the firepit hot dogs.

"That is one of my favorite parts, watching the people smile. Just saying the word 'hot dog,' people are thinking about having a good time. So, people come when they're already happy and they bring that energy or when they're feeling like they wanna be happy," said Joe.

Larry Joe's New England Fire Pit is located at 30 Cape Road in Mendon. For more information, visit their website.

I can't recall the kind of hot dogs we ate but I do know that they were fantastic and bis recipe is definitely one of a kind. As we sat on the grass next to his wagon, be brought out bis keyboard and started playing and singing a medley of songs. How cool is tat? Then be took the time to chat with us about bis life, bis music, the talent be has and bis journey to pow.

We 'Ave found that over the last six tours, customers and owners have been very Friendly, accommodating, and want to get to know us better. Wearing the A to Z Annual Hot Dog t-shirts help or the crazy outfits/costumes we wear attract attention.

Keeping the outing limited and to places with outside seating for safe social distancing, we broke up the hot dog gourging with a stop at Christopher's Homemade Ice Cream at 22 West St. Millbury, MA. Remember, my memory is only 85%, so I can't recall the exact flavors we had there but know we each got a cone and most likely Terry got a Frappe or MilkShake since she thoroughly enjoys them.

Our last stop was close to home at Krazy Jakes on Boston Rd., in Wilbraham. Being able to sit outside, we finished off the day with what else but HOTDOGS! You got it!

Tom couldn't remember either if we came back to our house as has been the custom. We usually go back to one of our homes and finish the day off with a night cap of HOTDOGS.

Well, that's about all I can recall but one thing remains the same — we always have a good time and enjoy this A to Z hot dog tour tradition.

Oh yea, answer to the first question, What does he (Tom) know? He knows how to eat HOT DOGS!