The more astute amongst you would have noticed that there was no “Jennee’s Sunday Spread” this week. That is because Jennee joined me in my kitchen this weekend as my kitchen hand was away and quite frankly, I just think she was keen to hang out with me a little more. So she certainly did not have the day to prepare her usual Sunday feast… plus she did consume a lot of alcoholic beverages the previous night. To say that she should not have been allowed to wield a knife on this day would not be a strong enough description of her condition. At one stage of the day I actually asked her to wield a real live knife, to which her response was a look of fear combined with what can only be described as delirious laughter. Not the response I was looking for, but we would carry on nonetheless.

I too was feeling crusty, but I damn well just had to deal with it. It was a straight up case of “we had made our bed and now we had to damn well lie in it”… even if it was a really shonky job of making the bed and the mattress had piss stains and other questionable textures on it. Our friend Em helped us make that bed though, and because of that we are more than happy to lay blame on our crustiness fair and square in her lap. You see, Em has recently purchased a house (which shall be known as our “mattress”) so felt it was only fitting that she should have a house warming party. Sure thing. Who wouldn’t? We thought we would stay for a few drinks (which we will later call our “sheets” and there shall be three of them and they shall be to the wind*) and then be back home in bed at a decent hour as we both had to work the next morning.

Needless to say, we had more than a few drinks (sheets), we did not go to bed at a decent hour (doona), and it’s all Em’s fault.

Anyway, several hours after I got my ragged ass to work, Jennee appeared. Damn. I had forgotten how much Jennee can annoy the shit out of me when she working with a hangover. It was like working with the offspring of a monkey and a galah that someone had trained to dance around and poke me and taunt me with silly words. That woman is seriously just effing disastrous. Some may say it is my comeuppance for being quite annoying on a daily basis but those people who say that should just shut their damn cake holes!

Anyway, the short of the story is that she survived the day, just. But there was no way in hell there was going to be a Sunday feast coming from Jennee… just mumbles and disenchanted sighs.

So I shall tell you about a hotdog we had last week.

This was not the humble hotdog I remember from my youth. I have memories of some kind of bright red sausage shaped thing of un-disclosed origin, pulled from the swampy looking steamy water and then slapped into a warm bun and doused in tomato sauce (or ketchup… sometimes I like to clarify things like this as I do realise that the audience of this blog has reached numbers larger than three or four, and are from all corners of the globe. Corners of the globe? Where the fuck did that come from? Corners of the round globe? Oh dear me… Deary deary dear me… I need to move on…).

Well the days of the humble hotdog are nothing but a distant memory to present day Grazza, as now, if I am delving into the world of hotdog, I shall be delving into the world of the WTF hotdog (yes his moniker was gained from his close relative the WTF Nachos. This shall also be the moniker given to any old school junk food I tamper with and bring back from the brink of a sad, sad culinary death). This is one souped up dawg. This hotdog walks into my home as a 1978 Datsun 120Y, and hits the table looking looking like a Maserati… a black one with bum warmers in the seats and espresso maker on the dash. It has even been tampered with by the guys from “Pimp my ride” so now it has a custom sun deck and spa…

It’s hard to tell where the sense ends and the dribble begins some days…

WTF HOTDOG with sauerkraut, onion jam, cheese, pickled cucumber relish, tomato sauce & yellow mustard
Bratwurst sausages (you need at least one each, but definitely two if you’ve got a little booze flowing through your system)
Hotdog buns (a similar amount to the sausages would be good)
Home made sauerkraut, onion jam, tomato sauce and cucumber relish (recipe below), to serve
Store bought cheese and yellow mustard, to serve
• Get all of your condiments ready if you are making them yourself
• Get your bratwurst cooking
• Wrap buns in alfoil and warm in a low oven for 10 minutes. Turn oven off and leave buns in there until sausages are ready
• Grate cheese
• Warm sauerkraut or don’t. That’s up to you
• Put it all on the table and let everyone go crazy
• WTF!

Pickled cucumber relish
Jennee spoke of a relish they put on their hotdogs in America. I didn’t really know what she was talking about so I made this up… it worked just fine.
½ cup chopped pickles/cornichons/gerkins
½ brown onion, diced
1 jalapeno, chopped
• Put all of those ingredients in the food processer and pulse until you are happy with the consistency

*three sheets to the wind. To be drunk or inebriated.