There’s another brand of hot dogs I’ve liked called True Story. Those and Fork in the Road are my favorites.
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I see your oatmeal and raise you mac and cheese.
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The age old question. Is a hot dog a sandwich?. I say no .
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While I quite like Miller’s, I recently stumbled on to this photo while searching through them for something else.
These were bought from the local Safeway years ago, and were spectacular… but haven’t been available for a long time.
They still have their bacon and a number of other “odd” items like chicken skewers ??? but no more hot dogs.
We get Hemplers here in Southern Oregon.
I suspect that Safeway is the culprit as far as availability.
I’ll ask our local meat manager who’s also a hot dog lover 
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Honestly, I feel like Mac N Cheese needs hot dogs.
Otherwise the entire dish is a bit monotone in both texture and taste. It’s sort of the reason why some Mac N Cheese have a breadcrumb (or some other crumb) topping.
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Impressive. Those must be regional brands? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any of those.
Many Texas sausage makers are of German or Czech heritage (and Acadian/Cajun) and mostly specialize in medium grind or coarse grind sausages rather than wieners. Everybody produces natural casing sausages, but for the few that do produce wieners or Frankfurters, they’re almost exclusively skinless. I only know of 2 wieners produced in Texas with natural casings, one from Schulenburg Meat Market in Schulenburg, on I-10 between Houston and San Antonio, and Kasper’s in Weimar, ‘the oldest German meat market in Texas,’ not far east of Schulenburg on old US 90.
But it’s a big state and I haven’t explored most of it for sausages and wieners.
44 Farms is a big meat purveyor to restaurants and has I think 2 wieners, both skinless. They’re used by some restaurants and I thought they were pretty good until I found Fork in the Road.
Amen. Wieners or something. Lil’ Smokies?, ham?, bacon?, chorizo?
Smoked brisket?, pulled pork?,
Something other than Cheddar or American? Some pasta other than elbows?
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of mac n’ cheese. (duh)
Oatmeal, now, that’s another matter.
Oatmeal with hot dogs? Sounds Scottish!
Snake River Farms and Double R Ranch are parts of a company named Agri-Beef. I think Agri-Beef is Idaho based with some of their meat coming from Washington. Falls Brand is another Idaho company. Bovine & Swine is in Wyoming. No idea how wide the distribution is for any of those companies’ products, but I think Snake River Farms is pretty well-known.
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Well, there certainly are butcher shops and specialty store I haven’t checked. I’ll keep my eyes open. Thanks for the info.
ETA: Albertson’s/Safeway is based in Idaho I think??? Maybe that explains the distribution. Safeway failed and abandoned the market back in the 80s I think, Albertson’s gave up after a few years. Randall’s was a failing locally originated store they took over but have not been able to turn the brand around. I’ll have to check Randall’s again – it’s the highest priced chain grocer in town, I think, and I seldom go.
Snake River and Double R Ranch can be purchased online and they ship all over, so the distribution is pretty good for them. I get their stuff delivered to me here in Massachusetts.
Agri-Beef?! Yeesh. This reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld (dating myself…) where they wanted to name the new merged company Moland Springs. I’ve heard of Snake River Farms, and I definitely don’t associate that name with a mass market meat producer. AgriBeef sounds like they should be in a Simpsons cartoon where there’s a conveyor belt with a whole cow on one end, and neatly packaged super market meats coming out the other side. Maybe their quality is great, but the name is terrible.
My favorite hot dog still remains the Boar’s Head all beef and beef and pork hot dogs, so certainly nothing fancy there either. My close second is Pearl’s which is a local purveyor for us in MA. Not sure how expansive their distribution network is. It just has to be on a New England style (the-only-sensical-way ™) bun.
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Really like Boar’s Head, but the local Safeway doesn’t carry it, and the Holiday Market that does is a long steep, windy, downhill road I try to avoid (especially in Winter).
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Everything reminds me of “that episode of Seinfeld”!
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There’s an episode of Seinfeld that basically explains everything in life.
Beginning with I am the master of my domain episode.
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+1 for Pearl! We also like Saugy for hot dogs, which I think is based out of Rhode Island.
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Yeah, Agri-Beef is a terrible name for what seems like a high quality business.
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I tried the Bovine & Swine hot dogs. They’re sort of odd–thin and long, too long for a normal hot dog bun. They taste pretty good, but the casing is very tough if cooked in an air fryer, and being as thin as these are, the tough casing is a big negative. Some other method of cooking would work better, I think. Double R Ranch is still my favorite natural casing hot dog.
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