Two days of cold, rain, and turtlenecks, too cold for me to go out to the grill, but maybe writing about Saturday’s dinner will warm me up a little.

It’s clear to me now that when hot dogs were engineered, the length and circumference were designed to perfectly accommodate a strip of bacon wrapped around from end to end. And you thought it was about the bun. I wonder how many other foods were engineered to work with the bacon strip? I guess you could do a bacon-wrapped dog in the oven or on a griddle, but it sure was a lot easier on the grill, not to mention the advantage of the smoky flavor. It was this easy:

1. Wrap one strip of thick-sliced bacon around each hot dog and secure at each end with a toothpick. I used Smith’s® Natural Casing Wieners.
2. Grill over direct heat, turning to cook each side until the bacon is browned (and partly charred as mine are).
3. Don’t forget to remove the toothpicks, whose ends have mostly burnt off.

We ate ours with Velveeta® cheese sauce and pre-packaged guacamole, but you could get fancy and make all the toppings yourself. Yep, I’m remembering that sunny day right now.