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Sarah Simpson Column: Ballpark fare ain’t got nothin’ on roasted wieners

Have I ever told you about my husband’s obsession with the food at minor and major league ballparks? Every year one website or another releases a list of all the new ballpark foods and by and large, I find them revolting. (I just Googled it, there are SO MANY lists.)
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He may not be able to cook a hot dog well, but my nephew can start a decent fire. (Sarah Simpson/Citizen)

Have I ever told you about my husband’s obsession with the food at minor and major league ballparks? Every year one website or another releases a list of all the new ballpark foods and by and large, I find them revolting. (I just Googled it, there are SO MANY lists.)

My husband would eat the toasted grasshoppers at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. I would not. This is where we are different I guess.

In Texas, the Rangers have chicken fried corn on the cob at Globe Life Park. Gross, but who am I kidding, I’d probably try it.

You can get fried bologna sandwiches at the Toledo Mud Hens ballpark and the Gateway Grizzlies offer a bacon cheddar burger with Krispy Kreme donuts in place of the bun.

Of course though, all the ballparks offer some type of hot dog.

SEE RELATED: Will you be celebrating national hotdog day with any of these crazy flavours?

National Hot Dog Day has recently come and gone and, like most major holidays, I forgot to write about it in my column and so now I’m doing it after the fact.

At Comerica Park, where the Detroit Tigers play, they seem to be all about the hot dogs.

The have a Bahn Mi Dog, which is described by cbssports.com as a “Thick slab of bacon topped with Asian slaw and sriracha aioli.”

They have a Coney Dog Egg Roll, described as a “Crispy egg roll filled with hot dog and chili, drizzled with classic mustard and a sprinkle of diced onions.”

OK, I’d probably try that one. Seems pretty tame.

At Comerica Park they also have the Al Pastor Dog. It’s billed as a “natural casing hot dog topped with smoked pull pork, pineapple relish, sriracha aioli, and Cotija cheese.

I’m not sure about that one.

Back in Texas, the Rangers have offered a DillyDog. It’s a hot dog inside a pickle, battered and deep fried.

At SunTrust Park where the Atlanta Braves play, their Dinger Dog sounds good to me. Probably because I like pie. It’s a “Foot long all beef hot dog, stuffed with cheddar cheese and house made bacon jam wrapped in golden brown puff pastry.”

Yes please.

Why am I telling you this, you wonder? I’ll tell you.

My family was camping up-Island last month. They were only roughly an hour or so away so we’d been making the trek back and forth so we could spend as much time with them as we could. One day we were at the campsite and my sister declared that due to the crowd, it would be hot dogs, chips, and a veggie plate for lunch.

My sister asked my nieces and nephews if they’d like to roast their hot dogs over the fire and yes, of course they did! What followed was comical, if only to me.

Her kids are 10, 12 and 14. They’re all objectively intelligent, have enough life skills to know how to make a campfire safely, and to know that meat (and I used that term loosely when talking about hot dogs) needs to be cooked through.

Even so, I’m not sure how many times I was asked “is this cooked?”

It cracked me up. These were definitely not ballpark creations. They were lone wieners! My poor nephew, the eldest of the trio, made sure his was good and cooked. So much so that it was significantly charred by the end. He asked me if it looked OK.

“Oh, yeah!” I said. “Looks nice and crunchy!”

I’d probably have used it as kindling for the next fire, or given it to the dog but my nephew slathered it in ketchup and ate it.

If I’m honest, I think I’d probably pick his over one of those over-the-top ballpark hot dogs if I was made to choose. But only because he’s my nephew.

My husband can stick to the fancy ballpark fare.