The Power of Suggestion

When I lived in Chicago, I seldom had hankerings for hot dogs. But when I moved to Portland eleven years ago, I suddenly developed weird intermittent cravings for a Chicago-style hot dog, that is, a kosher all-beef dog (steamed, not boiled) on a poppy seed bun with tomato slices, chopped onion, sport peppers, neon green relish, yellow mustard, a pickle spear, and a dash of celery salt.

I cannot explain why this happened. I only know that the hankering can be triggered by various and pretty tangential events. For example, once we went the Multnomah County Fair to watch the "Weiner Dog Races," which featured dressed-up miniature dachshunds dashing about in all directioins. Very cute and chaotic indeed. After the races, we had to drive straight to Zach's Shack in SE Portland, one of the few places here where you can get a pretty close approximation of a Chicago dog.



The pictured dog is not quite right. The bun doesn't have any poppy seeds on it and the relish is not neon; also, I committed a crime by adulterating it with ketchup, but hopefully the Chicago police have better things to do than fly to Portland to arrest someone for putting ketchup on a hot dog four years ago.

Anyway, once again today, the power of suggestion arrived--while I was working, as it happened. I won't attempt to explain my job here, but suffice it to say that in the course of my work today I ended up reading a paragraph about Chicago-style hot dogs (do I have a great job or what?). And I knew: This weekend B and I are destined to make a pilgrimage to Zachs, which by the way has gotten the message about poppy seed buns and neon relish.