The Greatest Achievement Of My Life

My birthday was earlier this month, and my team in LA sent me a Portillo’s Hotdogs gift pack! It was a thoughtful gift and I was super pleased. And what’s more, it allowed me to enact a plan that had been building in my mind for some time now.

All of you are aware of my love for Chicago hotdogs; I vowed to do this gift justice and follow the cooking and preparation instructions to the letter. I was pleased when the package arrived the day before my birthday, and I immediately opened everything up:

They sent a WHOLE ONION, just rolling around in the cooler pack. A whole bottle of mustard, too – even a little baggie of their specialty dill spears. I ate two of those immediately.

There was also a kickass hat:

But I couldn’t make them right away – I wanted to do it properly, and that meant a weekend, when I could spend some time with it and make the hotdogs with the gravitas befitting them. I put everything back and kept it refrigerated until the next following weekend. But then, I was ready. First I got out the box and the all important hotdog making instructions:

I got everything out of the cooler box and spread it out on the counter, so I could inventory the entire package and ensure I had everything. The only issue was the tomatoes, which had been refrigerated for over a week and were complete garbage. I substituted some alternative tomatoes but everything else was a-ok.

I also did something that, while right now may seem odd, will make more sense later: I weighed myself.

Now it was time to build to hotdogs!! First I got the water heating…

… then I spread out the fixings, and examined the instructions again.

I cut some little tomatoes I had to make up for the garbagy ones. I also prepared the buns for steaming – VERY important part!

I put a little dish of water in the microwave with it, to provide the steam. Water was ready!

I set a timer to ensure they were perfectly done. Almost done!

They’re done!

Ok let’s transfer them over to the counter…

First, dogs in buns:

Mustard next:

Neon green relish!

Tomatoes (diced, my only variance):

Onion

A shake of season salt – Portillo’s own!

And dill spears to finish:

They.
Were.
Absolutely.
Delicious.

And then, the final touch: I went back in and re-weighed myself:

That’s correct: I had started at 198, ended up at 200. That means that I was, officially, by weight…

This may be the greatest of my many achievements.