Good middle-of-the-week morning, AKA Wednesday.
There’s something about food cooked outside – be it on a charcoal or gas grill, a smoker, or campfire – that screams “SUMMER!”
I know some people are so enamored of grilling that they brave the elements in deepest upstate winter to get that perfect char pattern and smoky flavor. I, however, am not one of them. For me, grilling = something you do when it’s warm out.
There’s very little that one cannot grill. Throw a halved ripe peach, cut-side down and spritzed with a little oil, onto the grill and serve the results with a squeeze of lemon, some maple syrup and some Greek yogurt or vanilla ice cream? Maybe some snipped basil, to boot? Heaven.
Salmon, chicken, veggies, steak, shrimp, even pizza. It’s all somehow improved by a little time bathed in smoke.
Of course, you can always go the traditional route and do the hamburger and hot dog thing. Both are seen as quintessentially American – though, like anything else, that’s up for debate.
As a country, we consume about 14 billion hamburgers a year, compared to a paltry 9 billion hot dogs (this is actually potentially much higher because it doesn’t account for the number consumed at sporting events, which is difficult to quantify).
BTW, as a quick aside: McDonald’s reportedly sells 75 hamburgers a SECOND!! Try to wrap your head around that.
The Germans blow us away when it comes to hot dog consumption, (they call them sausages), which isn’t too much of a surprise since they really made an art out of stuffing ground meat into casings.
It was, in fact, German immigrants who brought their sausage-loving culinary traditions with them to the New World in the 1800s. Legend has it that the first so-called “dachshund sausages” were sold by a German immigrant out of a food cart in New York in the 1860s.
Here in the U.S. the most hot dog-loving city is…wait for it…Los Angeles?! Yup, at 30 million pounds a year, it beats New York City, in spite of all those carts on the corners offering dirty water dogs slathered in mustard, chopped onion, and relish.
Approximately 36 million pounds of hot dogs are consumed in the City of Angels annually. That may be because LA is home to one of the country’s most popular MLB teams – the Los Angeles Dodgers – which is a common characteristic among the top 10 hot dog consuming cities. Dodgers fans alone ate approximately 3 million (13 percent) of all the hot dogs consumed by league fans in 2016.
Yeah, I’m also surprised. LA, who would have thunk it? The home to kale smoothies and yoga and cleanses and skinny, beautiful people is the hot dog capital of the nation. Go figure.
BTW: If you’re curious about the 10-pack of hot dogs vs. 8-pack of buns conundrum, click here.
Today, if you hadn’t already figured it out, is National Hot Dog Day. And if you are considering cooking outside, you might want to wait until the sun goes down, because it’s going to be VERY warm again – even warmer than yesterday.
A heat advisory will be in effect from noon to 8 p.m. The heat index values are expected to be between 95 and 100 due to a combination of high temperatures and humidity. Take precautions.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden will sign an executive order that will expand the administration’s available tools to deter hostage-taking and the wrongful detention of U.S. nationals.
The executive order, known as “Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals Home,” will authorize the imposition of financial sanctions and visa bans on people involved in hostage-taking.
With his threat of executive action looming, Biden will speak today in Massachusetts about what the White House is calling a “climate crisis” after Sen. Joe Manchin obliterated Biden’s plans for new environmental spending.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would visit the future site of a manufacturing plant located at the former power plant “that will produce transmission cables for Massachusetts’ booming offshore wind industry.”
The National Archives requested that the Secret Service investigate “the potential unauthorized deletion” of agency text messages sent and received around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Secret Service said it may not be able to recover a batch of erased text messages from phones used by its agents around Jan. 6, a development that comes amid intensified scrutiny over lapses in the agency’s accounting of its actions during the riots.
Prosecutors opened their criminal case against Steve Bannon, telling jurors the longtime Trump adviser defiantly ignored a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
First-term state Del. Dan Cox , endorsed by Donald Trump, was projected to win the Maryland Republican gubernatorial primary, fending off a challenge from former state Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) preferred candidate.
Trump is urging PGA players to “take the money” and join a Saudi-backed golf tour despite 9/11 families’ criticism of the former president for hosting the upstart league.
Prosecutors in Atlanta have informed 16 Trump supporters who formed an alternate slate of 2020 presidential electors from Georgia that they could face charges in an ongoing criminal investigation into election interference.
The House passed a bill recognizing same-sex and interracial marriages at the federal level, as 47Republicans joined Democrats in support of a measure responding to growing concern that a conservative Supreme Court could nullify marriage equality.
The 267-157 vote on the Respect for Marriage Act comes the same week the chamber is also set to vote on the Right to Contraception Act. Both would enshrine into law rights not enumerated in the Constitution but recognized by the court recently.
An Indianapolis doctor who provided abortion care to a 10-year-old rape victim is preparing to sue Attorney General Todd Rokita of Indiana for defamation after he said he would investigate her actions in the case, according to a statement released by her lawyer.
An influential scientific panel recommended that a newly authorized vaccine from Novavax, a Maryland pharmaceutical company, be used as an option for adults seeking a primary immunization against the coronavirus.
The CDC, in a statement, said the vaccine will be available to the public in the coming weeks. The Biden administration has secured 3.2 million doses of Novavax’s vaccine so far, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
The top symptoms of the Omicron COVID-19 variant may differ from symptoms that were common at the start of the pandemic. Omicron may also be less severe than the Delta variant, a study out of the U.K. found.
Shares of cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian rose after the CDC ended its Covid-19 program for cruise ships.
New Covid-19 cases in China jumped to almost 1,000, with more infectious strains continuing to pressure the country’s goal of eliminating the virus as outbreaks spread beyond major cities.
Golden State Warriors All-Star Andrew Wiggins said he has some regrets about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine – despite the fact he would not have been able to play home games for the eventual NBA champions without it.
The pandemic’s devastating impact on drug overdose deaths in the United States hit people of color the hardest, with rates among young Black people rising the most sharply, according to a federal report that analyzed overdose data by race, age and income.
New York’s coming review of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a “blueprint” for the rest of the country, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
Hochul is facing sharp criticism for keeping in place a COVID-19 state of emergency that dates back to her predecessor that some say serves largely to benefit her campaign donors.
Hochul has extended her emergency pandemic powers through August 22, despite dropping numbers statewide. The executive order was stamped on July 14, extending New York State’s disaster emergency.
Perhaps the starkest example of Hochul’s fund-raising advantage — and, perhaps, her confidence of victory was the nearly $1 million her campaign transferred to the state Democratic Party, more than half before she won her primary election in late June.
Hochul insisted that she uses state aircrafts only when appropriate, allowing her to “connect with constituents, voters all across the state, as well as citizens.”
Hochul announced new administration appointments.
Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced a spate of recent felony convictions and nearly $3 million in wage restitution paid to wronged workers as they touted the state’s efforts to crack down on crooked business owners.
New York state has launched a hotline to help workers who have faced sexual harassment connect with pro-bono lawyers and provide them with advice, Hochul’s office announced.
One New York City family, led by entrepreneur Charlie Tebele, has donated nearly $300,000 to Hochul’s campaign. Since December, Tebele’s company was paid $637 million in taxpayer funds to provide the state DOH with at-home COVID-19 test kits.
As New Yorkers brace for a week of extremely hot weather, cooling centers in air-conditioned buildings throughout the city will be open to the public today through Thursday to offer relief from the heat.
As temperatures reach the mid-90s, New York’s electrical system will face an additional burden because of people working from home.
Mayor Eric Adams called on the federal government to send money to New York City to accommodate hundreds of foreign asylum seekers who’ve recently come here seeking refuge — many of them, he says, at the direction of states like Texas and Arizona.
Adams’ comments echo those of Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who took to national TV Sunday morning to say her city’s homeless shelters were filling up because of buses being sent en masse to the city from Texas and Arizona.
A day after Rep. Ritchie Torres criticized the federal government for its response to the recent monkeypox outbreak, Adams acknowledged that the city also needs to do more to make vaccines for the disease more accessible.
Adams is softening his tone on in-person work, admitting that the Big Apple “may not have central business districts anymore” as white collar workers increasingly embrace working from home.
Adams and longtime civil rights attorney Norman Siegel called on everyday New Yorkers to aid the city in its push to get homeless people off the streets as part of a new pilot program the city plans to launch next month.
Adams met with a small group of parents opposed to the budget cuts at public schools Monday, and did not commit to restoring the money, but said he was listening, adding that he could not respond more directly because of a lawsuit filed yesterday.
Adams blasted the revolving-door treatment of the Big Apple’s crooks in the wake of the NYPD’s latest crime figures — saying, “‘Catch, release repeat’ cannot be a criminal justice mantra.”
Thirty executives at a real estate firm with a history of touting the value of cryptocurrencies donated more than $21,000 to Adams’ reelection bid shortly after he asked Hochul last month to veto a bill that would impose new crypto regulations in the state.
After weeks of mounting pressure, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, dropped a murder charge against a bodega clerk who fatally stabbed an attacker.
The Long Island woman accused of shoving a beloved 87-year-old voice coach to her death on a Manhattan street rejected a plea deal from prosecutors that could have landed her behind bars for 15 years.
New York Democrats Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Rep. Nydia Velazquez and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were arrested yesterday in a pro-choice protest outside the Supreme Court, which is not in session.
Bill de Blasio is dropping out – again. The former mayor of New York City announced that he would no longer be running in the 10th Congressional District.
“I’ve listened really carefully to people,” de Blasio said in a short video posted to Twitter shot outside one of his homes in Park Slope. “And it’s clear to me that when it comes to this congressional district, people are looking for another option.”
Congressional candidate Dan Goldman kicked up significant backlash for comments he made about abortion in a recent interview – sparking almost immediate criticism from at least four rivals in the crowded Democratic primary field.
Hillary Clinton endorsed Democratic congressional candidate Robert Zimmerman for their party’s nomination in the Aug. 23 primary.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler took to the floor of the House to admonish Justice Clarence Thomas for recommending a federal legal review of gay marriage, sex, and contraception while remaining silent on the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing interracial marriage in 1967.
Iran announced sanctions on dozens of Americans over the weekend, including Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn).
Manhattan Councilwoman Carlina Rivera’s congressional campaign is clarifying that she vehemently opposes giving private businesses a pass on discriminating against LGBTQ people — after comments she recently made suggested she’s open to the idea.
The latest TV ad from Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney’s campaign touts his environmental record in the Hudson Valley.
Rockaway beaches were closed for swimming yesterday after sharks were spotted off the coast of the Queens shoreline — shutting off access to New Yorkers seeking relief from scorching temperatures.
The son of a retired Manhattan Supreme Court justice bludgeoned his mother to death and jumped to his death from an Upper East Side building, police and neighbors said.
Richard D. Simons, who sat on the Court of Appeals for 14 years and briefly served as acting chief judge of the top state court following the resignation of scandal-scarred Sol Wachtler, has died at 95.
A Brooklyn film location for the ripped-from-the-headlines TV crime show “Law & Order” became a murder scene when a man who was enforcing parking restrictions connected to the production was fatally shot while he sat in a car, the police said.
A troubling rise in fatal traffic crashes recorded in the Bronx so far his year — 28 people died during the first six months of 2022 — has safety advocates calling for swift action.
Ex-NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza — who resigned amid a cloud of controversy in 2021 — is engaged to the former Department of Education staffer he hired for a six-figure gig during his troubled tenure.
Transit officials are ill-prepared to effectively deploy personnel and resources to prevent flooding in the event of a hurricane, the MTA Inspector General’s Office said.
Albany County has identified its first case of monkeypox, a rare viral infection.
Legislation to include skateboards with other wheeled vehicles that are already prohibited from city sidewalks is part of the Albany City Council’s move to overhaul the rules around skateboarding in the city.
A Maryland health care executive has been named the new president and CEO of Saratoga Hospital and will start Sept. 19.
Washington Park and Center Square residents have been advised by the production company for HBO’s “The Gilded Age” to expect filming for the HBO Max series’ second season to take place from Aug. 6-10.
The state DEC granted the Port of Albany a special waiver in March to move ahead with a now-controversial plan to clear-cut 80 acres along the Hudson River in Glenmont in preparation for a massive, $350 million wind turbine tower manufacturing operation.
Netflix suffered two consecutive quarters of subscriber losses for the first time in its history, and said some key steps it is taking to boost revenue and subscriber growth wouldn’t happen until next year.
