Our good friend Ed, a phenomenal cook and native New Yorker, recently returned from the East Coast after a summer of traveling around the U.S. catering music festivals and brought back a case of Sabrett hot dogs. These are the “dirty water dogs” that are sold from carts on the streets of New York, named after the murky water in which they float.

I have to admit that during my visits there, I’ve never tried one of these local delicacies, partly because there’s an endless amount of great food in New York to sample, but mostly because of my Chicago hot dog superiority complex. But I’ll eat anything Ed gives us, and thus I was ushered into hot dog heaven — tender beef franks with a crisp snap, plenty of spicy brown mustard, and a whole load of onions in tomato sauce. The latter condiment was my favorite — I love cooked/grilled onions but have never been a fan of the raw onions in Chicago-style dogs, so the mess of tomato-y, slightly spicy goodness on my dog was perfect. I think I could eat a bowlful of these onions by itself.

Ed sent us home with a pack of hot dogs and a generous amount of onions to bring to my parents, who lived in New York more than thirty years ago — “They’ll definitely remember these,” he said — but you know what? These dogs are so good, they’ll never make it out our front door.