Hot dogs from the past

I know, I know, hot dogs are not good for you. But this week I ran into a recipe that has haunted me for 30 years. It is the chili sauce that is used in a favorite place in our hometown, New Castle. Yeppie, I got the recipe for P.O. (short for Post Office) Lunch hot dogs. Well, at least it is purported to be original. And after brewing it today and tasting it...I gotta say if it is not original it is close.

You see, the area we come from is heavily ethnic...Italian, Syrian, Greek, Hungarian, you name it, New Castle has it. PO Lunch was a bar located adjacent to the big marble columned U. S. Post Office. It was not until the 1970s that I even went in the place, but we sure liked their hot dogs. Incidentally, there was another place in town, Coney Island, that peddled a similar product, but it was more family friendly and thus more popular (no alcohol served) to many in our family. They have good chili dogs, too, and I did get their recipe, too, but today, Aleene whipped up a batch of PO lunch chili. It simmers for three hours, so you have to want to eat this stuff.

So, as Aleene basks at the Coast with some of her lady friends from church, I will be eating some hot dogs and thinking about the good old days, but I will not be drinking a bottle of I. C. Light....nope, maybe a diet Coke.

The picture is the present day version of the house I was raised in...we called it Luacres.