Fletcher’s, “proudly Canadian since 1917″, arguably makes some of the best mass-market bacon around.  And you’ll pay for it, as well.  A full line-up of their processed pork products is here.

We’re enjoyed their bacon from time to time, and last week I picked up a pack of their Louisiana style hot links smoked sausage.

They are fat, juicy, and full of flavor.  Great snap.  And they are HOT.

This is one of the ‘hotter’ mass market smoked sausages I have found.  Probably the only one we regularly purchase that gives off more heat, is Fred Meyer’s house brand “Italian hot.”

I liked these.  For breakfast, dinner, in gumbo, or any other reason you have to use a smoked sausage, Fletcher’s is a good choice.

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Tucked away in one of the industrial sections of Portland, directly underneath where the 405 crosses the river, the Dockside serves the working stiffs that ply their trade in the various businesses in the port.

Open from 5AM – 8PM M-F, and with earlier closing times on the weekend, the Dockside features a lengthy breakfast and lunch menu daily food and soup specials.

I was doing some work in the area, and my client suggested we pop in for a bite. I went with a bacon/cheeseburger, which is served with your choice of a wide variety of sides, and dressed with sauce, tomato and shredded lettuce.

Ample thick-sliced bacon and gooey cheese topped the burger. While the food doesn’t particularly make the Dockside a specific destination for diners, it is ample, fast, inexpensive, and served by a really friendly staff. Full menu is online.

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Had a quick bite to eat here while meeting a friend from out of town who was doing some biz in this neighborhood. I’m pretty leery of places in Portland that have the word “Deli” in their name; here it can often mean “lottery games and hot dogs,” but such was not the case today.

Tubby’s is a casual service breakfast and lunch joint with daily specials; the serve the working stiffs in the area, it seems.

My pal went for one of the specials, prime rib French dip, and I opted for the bacon cheeseburger.

I didn’t ask about any of the origin of the ingredients, though I saw empty boxes in a back hallway from IBP, and that’s premium product.   The counter person asked me what I wanted on that, and few places do that anymore.  There was a wide variety of sides choices, fries, tots, slaw, salad, etc.  I went with fries.

It’s a good “classic” hamburger, if you’re sorting into categories these days, like the Oregonian.

And yes, I’d stop back, if I happened to find myself in that neck of the woods again.

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Back in the day, before there were national chains that offered TNB, there was a local one in my home town.  It was next door to a place that sold soda by the case, in a myriad of flavors, with their own label on it.  I don’t remember the names of either place.

Every week, I get Papa Murphy’s coupons in the mail, they come on Tuesdays with some other postal flyers.   They are usually a better deal than any of the other chains, today it was $10 for a large 5 meat stuffed pie.

This pizza has the usual cheese, sauce, and is topped with pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, and the other kind of bacon, then a second crust is placed on top of that, and some more sauce, cheese, and ground beef is sprinkled atop the outer crust.

I swear this puppy weighed in at 5 pounds, making it a terrific value.  It could feed a large family, I am sure. (I was only good for two small slices, which still blew my carb allowance for the day).

Papa Murphy’s supplies their pies on a disposable baking tray, so all you have to do is follow the instructions, 425, center rack, 25-30 minutes, take it off the tray and place directly on the rack after 20 for a crispier crust.

It’s been eons since I had a Papa Murphy’s, and I have to say, for the “value chains”, this is my new bestest favorite.   The crust was crispy, there is tons of cheese, mild sauce, and it is crammed full of processed pork products.

Below are pix of the pie uncooked, cooked, and of a slice.  The side view of the slice shows the ample ingredients.

I don’t know why I haven’t picked these up more often. I will  in the future.

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Cracked open a one pound package of Hoffy Premium Bacon for breakfast this morning; like most people these days, Mrs. BDB and I are bacon crazy, and we’re constantly on the look out for bacon that suits our palate.

Hoffy gets about 18 slices to the pound, thicker than some, thinner than others.  We liked it.

It’s my own personal conclusion that Hoffy is building their reputation and product line based on creating product that caters to the widest possible audience, and that’s a good thing.

The basis for my opinion is fairly straight forward: quality products, good taste, and not burdened with extreme flavors – and by that I mean, the product tastes the way you would expect, rather than having some overpowering flavor imparted from additives.

There is an occasional conflict in the BurgerDogBoy household about how to cook bacon – my personal preference is to fry it in a skillet or on a cast iron griddle on the stove top, and the reason I like doing this is to be able to collect the residual fat left after cooking – to use it in other things I concoct in the kitchen during the week.

Mrs. Burgerdogboy prefers that we bake our pork strips in the oven, and how she does this is to put a bread rack on cookie sheet and pop it in a 350 oven for 20 minutes, and turning and watching after that milestone.

The baking method has its advantages, for sure, less shrinkage, the strips cook up flat and straight, and she insists (OK, I agree with her) that the bacon cooks more evenly.

And thus we baked our Hoffy Bacon this morning.   The first thing one notices when the baking is partially into the process, you get an overwhelming odor sensation of “OMG – there’s PORK cooking!”

That’s right, Hoffy Bacon actually smells and tastes like a bonafide pork product.  It’s relatively lean, and it tastes (in our opinion) like bacon is supposed to taste.

Maybe Hoffy could adopt that tag line you see lately for other products? “Bacon, the way it was meant to be!”

It’s so easy to be disappointed in bacon these days, we’ve purchased on of the largest national brands lately and watched it virtually “melt” into nothingness in the skillet.  Not to mention sticker shock, lately.  I’ve seen a pound package of another brand for $15.  What?  We do like Hoffy comes in a 1 lb package, a lot of bacon these days is packed in 12 oz units.

Congrats on a great product, Hoffy people!  We’ll be regulars.

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This week we begin a spotlight series on regional brands.

Hoffy is a brand name known to Los Angelenos for over 75 years. Chances are, if you’ve eaten a natural casing hot dog at a restaurant in L.A., it came from Hoffy.

The world-famous Pink’s uses a specially formulated dog from Hoffy, for example, and Hoffy sells a “Hollywood Original” hot dog in a grocery pack.

The Hollywood Original is the first Hoffy product we tried this week.  An all-beef, oversized dog ( 5 in a 12oz package), the dog comes in a natural lamb casing.

Hot dogs in natural casing, tho making up only about 5% of the US grocery store sales, are a favorite among true hot dog lovers.  Being packed in a casing, (as opposed to the regular mass consumption hot dogs in the US, which are referred to as “skinless”), the natural casing offers resistance when you bite into the sausage.  Consumers call this “snap”, which is derived in the sausage trade from the rough translation of the German work “knack”.

(The German noun Knackwurst—which, in English is sometimes corrupted as knockwurst—comes from the German words knacken (“to crack”) or knackig (“crisp”). This refers to the swelling of the sausage during cooking, so that the skin becomes pressurized and balloon-like, and tends to “pop,” often exploding the juices, when bitten into.)

In addition to beef and water, the Hoffy Hollywood original has a bit of corn syrup, flavorings, and paprika, and comes in at a very low 2 carbs per dog, if you’re prone to watching carbs.  This is a fairly traditional “hot dog” recipe.

Today, of course, “hot dogs” (franks, wieners) can be found with a myriad of ingredients and/or meats.  Turkey dogs, chicken dogs, all pork, all beef, vegetarian.  At home, on a rare occasion, we cram casings full of a variety of seafood and herbs, great for summer grilling.

Having consumed 10,634,127 hot dogs in my life (est.), I think the Hoffy Hollywood Original is a superb dog, which will appeal to most consumers.

I’m a hot dog “purist” and keep my condiments to a minimum, on last nite’s pups, I went for yellow mustard, diced onion, and dill pickle chips.

A peculiarity in the Burgerdogboy household, while I insist on premium hot dogs, my taste in buns runs to the least expensive in the store at any one time.  So rarely am I paying more than a buck for a pack of buns.

The oversized Hoffy fills the standard bun (and more) as seen below.

With an all beef recipe, mild flavor, and great “snap”,  Hoffy Hollywood Original will become a dog of choice at our household, and they should be in yours, as well.

(Ed. note:  Hoffy products sampled were furnished by the manufacturer).

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The Hoffman Brothers Packing Company was founded in  Southern California in the 1930s by three siblings and thrived for decades.  Hoffman produced sausages and other processed meats from their factory in Vernon, CA, and were well-regarded suppliers to grocers and restaurants around SoCal.

By the late 1970s, the industry had changed significantly, and larger concerns were dominating the industry, producing a great deal of pressure on the mom and pop operations.  In another lifetime, I personally poked my nose in dozens and dozens of small sausage manufacturing facilities in Louisiana, many of whom started in a kitchen or garage, and grew into multi-million dollar operations.  I saw the effect of the large corporate squeeze on operators of this size.

In an attempt to vertically integrate before the phrase was even coined, Hoffman invested in a hog slaughtering facility in Nebraska.  The deal went south, and coupled with the death of the company patriarch, Hoffman piled up a mound of debt and filed for bankruptcy protection in 1993; they filed under Chapter 11, which allows a company to keep operating while reorganizing or attempting to find a buyer.

Hoffman chose the second option, and in 1995 found a savior in  in Square H Brands, Inc., a company formed by the principals of a number of other successful food companies, including the founder of Kal Kan, Stagg Foods (canned chili) and Palisades Foods.  The principals of the companies were all members of the Hirsch family.  The were joined by Henry Haskell, who still serves as President of Square H Brands.

The quartet was determined to bring the meat processor back to its former glory days, and to date, it sure seems like they are on target to do so.

(Here’s a sidebar on how to cook a hot dog at home).

(Information for this post was compiled from a variety of sources, on and offline).

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Was invited by Portland’s garden consultant extraordinaire, Sara Pool, for brunch at Salty’s on the Columbia River.

We’ve wanted to hit this brunch for a long while, as it features at least three of Mrs. Burgerdogboy’s favorites – crab legs, raw oysters, and bacon!

And I’m all about any place you can eat pounds of bacon and sausage and not be admonished or penalized (in some regards) for doing it.

We arrived for the 11am seating (make reservations via OpenTable), and were seated promptly, tho the restaurant was very crowded.  (Note, it seemed to thin out a bit around 123o).   Our affable server Austin (named after my mother’s home town) took our beverage orders and explained our options.

We were seated upstairs at a window overlooking the marina, the river, and flightpath for PDX.   It was a lovely sunny day.

The buffet is on the main floor, and the choices are too numerous to even start a list.  Suffice to say that anything you could imagine being on an American Sunday brunch buffet was there in full force, very high quality, attention to detail and presentation.  Whether you wanted to focus on a “breakfast” or imbibe in solely seafood, or chomp on chocolates – have at it!

Just the seafood alone is enough to drag me to this place (full menu link below), this is a feast!

Salty's Seafood Weekend Brunch Menu

The Salty’s brunch is a bit spendy ($45 plus drinks), but take a gander at their brunch menu online, and you’ll want save your pennies to hit this place as soon as possible.

I haven’t been very happy with my food pix lately, and today was no exception.  This is just one plate of many that we had.  The foto looks “foggy”, as you can see.  I had a lightbulb when I got home, and cleaned the lens.  A lot of old burgers and pizza covering that piece of glass, apparently.   A new camera is on my wish list for burgering in 2012.

The quality will improve!  (Thanks Spool for a fabulous day!).

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Food companies: Americans need your help right now. We’ll make it up to you later, we promise. Seems like every time I go into a grocery store, which is 3-4x weekly, everything is up another dollar. Seriously? Yes, we know your costs are up, but aren’t you taking advantage just a wee little bit?

I for one, think so. Can’t you ease back on the profits for a year or two? Can’t you make this promise to us? We’re hurting, if you haven’t heard. $10 of gas is enough to get us to the next gas station. Turkeys that used to be free with minimum purchases at this time of year, are now only offered at “less per pound.” But $25 for the average turkey? Are you kidding me?

I wonder how many Americans are going to “celebrate” Thanksgiving over dollar menus at fast food outlets?

Tomorrow we are going to give thanks for our country, our faith, our families, our friends. You’ll probably be giving thanks for banner profits and dividends.

I’m all for making money. I wish I was. For the most part, I’ve had a very fortunate life. Now our family is struggling just to keep the roof over our heads and the lights on.

It’s not funny. But you know what? Our family has it a lot better than a lot of people, this I know for sure.

$60 – $75 dollars used to feed a family for a week. Now it buys a couple of bags of groceries, a few meals, some staples. God forbid we don’t get sick or need meds, then the grocery money would go to that.

I am calling on food companies, at least one of you, to make a stand. Roll back prices. Be transparent, at least. Tell us you are doing everything you can do to be helpful in this difficult time.

Manufacturers, slash prices. Grocery stores, don’t offer us bogus bullshit BOGOs which work out to the average every day price of the item, anyway.

Give us something to be TRULY thankful for tomorrow, and in the year to come.

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“It’s Not Delivery, It’s DiGiorno”  state the commercials for this Nestle product.  Hmmm.  I’ve had lots of delivered pizzas that became fleeting, one-time events in my life, and if DiGiorno wants to be placed into that category, I’m happy to oblige them.

I purchased the ”bacon, sausage, and pepperoni” topped version of this pie, and the packaging has a couple of new ’brag points’ printed on it:  “Now with 33% more meat,” and “With the Great Taste of Garlic.”   I say “YAY!” for the garlic, but question “33% more meat” (than what?)

I’ve reviewed a DiGiorno product before (Flatbread Pizza) and liked it.   This one?  Not so much.

What’s wrong with it?  Well, in a word, nothing.  It’s a product produced to be as inoffensive to the public as possible, and therefore, in my opinion, that company mandate makes the food as bland and without uniqueness as possible.

Crust – this is a medium thickness crust, somewhat “Boboli” in nature, but when first removed from the oven, doesn’t give a hint of any type of crispness.  It stiffens up as it cools, but never fully achieves the “crisp crust” quality I like in pizza.  In the photo above, you’ll notice the hot slice has some “New York hang” (arrow) resulting in what I call “slide”, one of the least desirable qualities in pizza.  I define “slide” as the process that makes a slice’s toppings slide off the crust into the box, or onto the floor or your clothing.

The toppings are completely without any kind of character, and the heretofore mentioned “with the great taste of garlic” wasn’t noticeable to my palate.

Cheese-stuffed crust?  Well, you can SEE it, but you can’t really taste it or sense the texture of melted cheese in biting it.  The cheese with the crust congeals fairly quickly with cooling, and doesn’t really add anything to the tactile or taste sensation when consuming this pie.

As I frequently write, the posts on this site are only a reflection of my personal tastes, and obviously, Nestle sells a lot of this product, so it must appeal to the masses.

So I’ll pass on trying this one again.

For unique flavors and textures, I’m still fixated on the imported frozen pizzas one can find at Trader Joe’s.  Some of the best product on the market.

I’ve been in a lot of food factories, and met a number of food ‘scientists.’  I can’t help but wonder what the original conceiver/creator of the DiGiorno pizza thinks of the product in its present form.

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