When it was time for the yearly Congressional picnic, Illinois senator Dick Durbin knew of only one food that could properly represent the Midwestern values of his homeland of Chicago, and that was the hot dog.  Chicago is famous for a lot of things, from the Chicago Cubs to Chicago-style pizza to the Chicago Manual of Style, but there’s nothing quite like the dragged-through-the-garden taste of a fully loaded Chicago-style hot dog.  So he contacted Mike Payne, owner of Byron’s Hot Dogs, and personally requested that he come and cook hot dogs at the White House.

Payne soon found out that cooking for the President isn’t as easy as it seems, as all the ingredients have to be ordered through White House head chef Cristeta Comerford.  However, Comerford was able to track down Vienna dogs, yellow mustard, shredded lettuce, diced onions, sliced cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes, hot peppers, celery salt, and dill pickles.  Even President Obama and his family picked up some dogs for a taste of their former Illinois homeland.

“A little bit of home cooking came all the way to the White House,” joked Payne.  He made masses of hot dogs from 7 AM until 10 PM!  Talk about a full day of cooking!

Tags: Chicago, Illinois, Midwestern food, Chicago-style hot dog, Dick Durbin, congressional picnic, Obama, Mike Payne, Byron’s Hot Dogs, Cristeta Comerford, hot dogs, unusual hot dogs, cooking for the president

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]