What Do The Presidential Candidates Taste Like?

The Guardian did a brilliant little piece where one of their writers, going crazy from election fatigue, wrote about what the different candidates for PM "taste" like.  A sample: "Nigel Farage tastes like rich fruit cake, the inside of a frankfurter sausage, fried onions, a few peas, a wet tweed jacket sleeve that grinds on your teeth and a dollop of semolina."  Just for kicks, I've done my own for the currently declared and likely to declare candidates for president.

Hilary Clinton tastes like roasted kale.

Jeb Bush tastes like caviar and a bland burrito with too much sour cream in it.

Ben Carson tastes like blanched, unsalted peanuts and a mayonaise and onion sandwich.

Bernie Sanders tastes like a big hot bowl of pho with a little extra siracha stirred in.

Chris Christie tastes like a McDonalds cheeseburger that's been sitting under the lamp too long.

Rand Paul tastes like the gyros they have at Applebee's.

Carly Fiorina tastes like the quince log left for last in the chocolate box.

Ted Cruz tastes like a slurry of Sour Patch Kids, Pop Rocks, and Warheads candy.

Marco Rubio tastes like a gas station hot dog washed down with bottled water.

Mike Huckabee tastes like Waffle House.

An Incomplete Guide to the Best New Jersey Hot Dog Joints

I must admit to having a love of hot dogs, which in our slow-food, locavore times marks me as both an apostate and a philistine.  They are in many ways the symbol of a food culture gone wrong, the chemically-enhanced product of ground-up lips, assholes, and God knows what else.  A vegetarian colleague of mine recently said of hot dogs that food shouldn't bounce when you drop it.  I understand all these things, but I am also a child of the Midwestern lower-middle class, and thus a great a appreciator of cheap pleasures.  I also happen to live in New Jersey, which is an embarrassment of riches for hot dog lovers.

I am lucky to be married to someone with similar predilections, and we have been to many hot dog joints.  The New York Times put out their own guide to Jersey dogs awhile back, one I found to be wanting, especially since the author took the usual anthropological tone when crossing the Hudson, as if New Jersey were some kind of exotic land.  I'd rather give an insider's perspective, with the caveat that I prefer hot dogs with snap when you bite 'em, a la Grey's Papaya in New York City or The Grand Coney, my old haunt in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Also, based on my time in Chicago, I consider putting ketchup on a hot dog to be a true sign of philistinism.  I haven't been to all of the hot dog places in New Jersey, so consider this an incomplete list, and one that I hope to make some additions to.

Rutt's Hut (Clifton)

Rutt's Hutt holds a sentimental place in my heart for having been my first Jersey hot dog experience.  Going there is like entering some kind of time portal, which is appropriate since it is hard to get to, perched amidst various ramps and frontage roads for Route 21.  There's a hot dog stand area in front, but the best bet is to sit on the bar in the back.  The interior is has decorative railings and is paneled with dark wood straight out of 1972.  During the summer baseball games will be on the TV, and the conversation at the bar will be interesting.  (You can also get regular Coors from the tap, which is a rare treat.)  Rutt's Hutt is best known for the "ripper," a deep fried hot dog.  It actually tastes a lot lighter than you might think.  It also should be topped off with their homemade mustard relish, which I wish I could take trunkload home with me.

Dickie Dee's (Newark)

Regular hot dogs just weren't enough for New Jersey, so back in the 1930s, at least according to the folks who run Jimmy Buff's, the Italian hot dog was created.  It's not so much a hot dog as a giant sandwich full of potatoes, onions, and two hot dogs, all of which have been fried together in oil.  I have yet to go to Jimmy Buff's, but I have been to Dickie Dee's, a Newark institution.  It's probably the only hot dog joint with signed celebrity photos on the wall (including Joe Torre's.)  I took a close look at the fryer, and there are many mansions of flavor trapped in the decades of absorbed into it.  One Italian hot dog is pretty much all you need to eat to stay full for a whole day.

Libby's Lunch (Paterson)

Some parts of New Jersey have their own local variations of the hot dog, and my favorite is the "Texas weiner."  (I am aware of the mis-spelling.)  The Texas weiner is a spicy hot dog with meat chili (Texas style) and onions on top.  It was invented about a century ago in Paterson, America's first industrial city and home to some beautiful waterfalls of the Passaic River.  Go to Paterson to check out the history and the falls, then stop over to Libby's, a small diner whose decor looks like it was last updated in 1983.  You will get your Texas weiners on a paper plate, which is probably that cuisine's ideal delivery system, and you will not be disappointed.

Manny's Texas Weiners (Vauxhall)

Luckily for me, I no longer have to drive all the way to the Paterson area to get a good Texas weiner.  Right down the road from me is Manny's Texas Weiners, which not only makes a fine dog, but is also a great place to eat.  I do not think I have ever been to a restaurant attracting a more diverse clientele, both in terms of race and class.  That befits its location, since Manny's sits at the confluence of bourgeois Millburn, working class Vauxhall, and middle and working class Union.  Folks are in a good mood there, mostly because they're eating some awesome dogs.  It is impossible to leave there without being happy.

Rahway Grill (Rahway)

This is a grungy hole in the wall befitting gritty, blue collar Rahway.  Don't let the aged decor and musty atmosphere turn you off, though, these are some fantastic chili dogs, more in line with Coney style that the spicier Texas weiner.  Like Rutt's Hut, it's got wood panelling from bygone times, and some talkative characters at the lunch counter.  A place this good can easily survive on word of mouth.

Galloping Hill Grill (Union)

This is a favorite stop of my wife's family, and two things put it over the top.  First, the buns are made of thick bread, not the white chemical goop that so many hot dog buns are constructed out of.  Furthermore, they have birch beer on draft, more flavorful than your average root beer, and the perfect thing to go with the dogs.  You can go sit inside, but we always just eat at the tables by the stand in the back, and then walk to the front to get ice cream.  Yep, they've got dogs, birch beer, and ice cream in the same location, which pretty much makes it one of my favorite summertime destinations in these parts.

Packing My Winter Survival Kit

It looks like winter has come early this year, if the recent cold temperatures here in New Jersey are any indication.  The older I get, the more I dislike winter.  I actually really loved it growing up, since it meant building snow forts, sledding, and staying indoors to play Connect Four and Battleship during recess.  Nowadays I have a little PTSD from my two winters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where over 100 inches of snow fell both times and the sun came out maybe twice between Halloween and Easter.  After living in Michigan I spent three years in Texas, and really got used to not really having winter.  That experience has drastically reduced my tolerance for cold and lack of sunshine.

To survive winter with my mental state intact, I've started assembling a winter survival kit of things that will make the next few months bearable.  It follows, organized by category.

Food
Certain foods seem to be meant for winter, where they warm both the body and the soul.  Oatmeal and grits thus become especially important at breakfast, when my stomach requires something hot.  This time of year I make a lot of chili, which always seems to lift my spirits.  In recent years I have also delved into the world of root vegetables, whose hearty warmth spreads throughout my limbs whenever I eat them.  My favorite is carrot-rutabega mash, but I also like to make parsnips, turnips, and sweet potatoes.  Soups and stews beyond chili are necessary for survival, and this time of year my shadow haunts Vietnamese restaurants, where I can savor a big old steaming bowl of pho.  There's practically nothing better on a cold dark afternoon, except maybe lamb stew.

Beer
Speaking of lamb stew, dark beers are a winter favorite for me as well.  Something about stout and porter especially fit the cold short days and freezing long nights, but I'll grab a bottle of Bell's Brown Ale in a heartbeat.  Other favorites for this time of year are the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter by Great Lakes Brewing Company, Yeti Imperial Stout by Great Divide, Samuel Smith's oatmeal stout, and The Kaiser by Avery, which we used to call "the ole ass-kicker" when I lived in Michigan.

Whiskey
I don't really drink a lot of whiskey during most of the year, but I go through quite a bit in winter time.  Many a night in a frigid apartment has been soothed by the golden glow of Irish whiskey.  While Jameson and Tullamore Dew were my first whiskies, recently I have been delving into bourbon, and the right kind of bourbon can unlock the same glowing fire inside.  These days I have become a fan of Old Grand-Dad, which has a wintry flavor (can't quite explain it) that survives mixing and costs only twenty bucks a bottle.  It's what I call a switch-hitting bourbon, in that it's good for mixing but rough enough not to make mixing a travesty, and yet smooth and tasty enough to stand on its own.

Music
The right music is absolutely essential for making it through winter.  It has to speak to the season's difficulties, and the sad feelings that are more likely to wrap themselves around my mind.  I tend to listen to a lot of folk-inflected music, especially Leonard Cohen's first album, Tim Buckley, Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson, and Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's first album, which is just about as perfect as winter music gets.  In addition to this stuff, I also go with The Smiths, Joy Division (super wintry), The Velvet Underground (whose drones are like a space heater for my soul), and early Miles Davis.  I have spent many evenings shivering under a blanket listening to 'Round Midnight, which is less an album than a kind of medicated musical balm.

Clothing
Keeping warm is the operating principle behind my winter survival kit, and clothing its most crucial component.  I tend to wear a lot of sweaters, the thicker the better.  A cable knit sweater my wife got my for my birthday has reminded me why I like that genre of sweater so much for the winter time.  Over the years I have also built up a large supply of cardigans, which are an easy thing to grab when you need a little warmth.  I also go with lots and lots of flannel, shirts in the day and pajamas at night.  At those times when it is necessary to venture outdoors, I always have on a hat (tweed usually) and scarf.  Until the last few years I was not a scarf-wearer, but my two winters in Michigan cured me of that shortcoming right quick.  Slippers always get lost, so I like to slip on a pair of wool socks, they certainly make walking on the cold tile in the kitchen and bathroom less trying.

Anything in your own winter survival kits that I'm missing here?

The Pleasures of a Good Diner

This morning I went with my wife and daughters to a local diner for breakfast, one of my favorite Saturday morning traditions.  When I was single I would walk or drive down to the diner with a newspaper and read and eat at a leisurely pace, enjoying the onset of the weekend.  Nowadays I appreciate diners because they are very kid friendly.  The food comes out fast, it pleases my daughters, and the loud noise of the diner makes any crying or fussing much less embarrassing to me and bothersome to others.

A good diner is truly something to be cherished.  Our diner of choice this morning was Tops, in East Newark near the mighty Passaic River.  Unlike many other diners, their coffee is really good, and the interior is sophisticated and kept spic and span.  Just down the road in North Arlington sits the North Arlington Diner, where my wife and I had shared some important conversations in our early courtship.  I'd much rather have moments like that in a place with advertisements for local businesses on the placemats, rather than a swank joint with fancy napkins and low light.  You can take the boy out of the rural lower-middle class, but you can't take the rural lower-middle class out of the boy.

It is a truly lucky twist of fate that I have landed in New Jersey, where diner culture is still going strong.  In other places where I've lived my diners went into extinction, here they thrive.  Outsiders i.e. snooty New Yorkers, might take the proliferation of diners in the Garden State to be a sign of Jersey's lack of sophistication, but I see it as quite the opposite.  Instead of going to Applebee's or McDonald's, people here would rather have a homier, higher-quality breakfast experience.

Over the years I've put some thought into what makes a good diner, and here are the criteria I've come up with:

Friendly Atmosphere
When I lived by myself diners were the kinds of places where I could eat out alone, but not be alone.  I would strike up conversations with the other customers at the counter with the wait staff.  Nowadays this friendliness comes out at places like the Parkwood Diner in Maplewood, where folks will smile at our daughters or ask how old they are. This is the type of thing that doesn't happen at other kinds of restaurants.  The classic Barry Levinson flick Diner is centered around diner conversations, I could never imagine a film called Bistro or Gastropub.

Skilled Staff
Since diner food is pretty predictable, the service at diners is what really distinguishes them.  In my experience, I've had the best service in diners, even though diner staff get lower tips because the food is cheaper.  (Which is an argument against tipping and for paying wait staff a higher base salary, but I digress.)  At my old place in Chicago, The Salonica, they pretty much knew what I was going to order when I walked in the door.  At the Grand Coney in Grand Rapids I don't think I was ever allowed to get to the bottom of a cup of coffee before it was refilled.

Decent Coffee
One regrettable fact about diners is that many of them have been slow to reflect the Great American Coffee Revolution of the past twenty years, where even gas station coffee has improved.  Some places, like the aforementioned Tops, actually have good coffee, but at most others it's bland, watered down Folger's crystals.  Sometimes I would just have my coffee at home, and then go to the diner and just have water or orange juice.  If you happen to find a diner with legitimately good coffee, hold on to it.

Unique Menu
Diner fare is pretty standard, but the better diners will have some menu items unique to their establishment.  At Mary Ann's in Champaign-Urbana they have a heart-clogging mechanism called the haystack which consists of a hamburger over biscuits topped with a haystack of hash browns slathered in white gravy.  It sounds gross, but hits the spot at 2AM.

The Corned Beef Hash Test
I have been to good diners, but I've also been to the kind bad diner described by Tom Waits where everything comes out of tin cans.  At the good places the food tastes fresh and made with care.  To determine whether a diner does take the proper attitude towards its food, I give it the corned beef hash test.  It's a dish I love for breakfast, but is so often just dumped out of a can at lesser diners.  At a fine establishment like Tops, however, you can actually see and taste real pieces of corned beef.  Many diners have passed this test, and they live on in my heart like old friends.