Bundle up.  It is cold out there.

“Let’s be careful out there.”

That was the edict of the roll call Sergeant on the 80s television show Hill Street Blues.  I wrote here some time ago that I procured the entire series and I have been watching it as I exercise on our equipment downstairs.  Tonight, as I raised my legs up and down with resistance and pushed back and forth on what is called an elliptical machine, I began watching season 5.  It made me sad.  There are only seven seasons.  I am over half way there.

HILL STREET SNACKS

So I have replaced Hill Street Snacks with an elliptical and an exercise bike and some free weights.  Once upon a time it was different story.

Hill Street Snacks was kindly of a contest.  It was a test of culinary will.  Mine.  These days you see television shows on the Food Network that show creating a meal as a competition of speed, accuracy, and taste.  I was doing this thirty years ago as I was watching Hill Street Blues with my Dad on Thursday nights.

A Hill Street Snack started with a decision:  What to make to eat!

French Toast?  A good Hill Street Snack.  A bunch of it.

Bacon Eggs Toast?  A great Hill Street Snack.  We’re talking 4 eggs, a half a pound bacon, and 4 to 6 pieces of toast.  Good God Y’all!  It’s true.  I did it.

Chili Dogs?  The ULTIMATE Hill Street Snack.

No matter what the Hill Street Snack…it was designed  to be prepared around all the commercial breaks.  There was a commercial at the fifteen minute break.  There was a double commercial at the bottom of the hour…commercials and a teaser  “Hill Street Blues will be right back”.  Then there was the fifteen minute left commercial.  After that…you eat your Hill Street Snack during the final segment.

I had a advantage cooking at my parent’s house.  If need be, I could dip my head below the stove’s exhaust fan and actually watch the television…although the decibel level of bacon frying might have impaired my ability to clearly pick up the show’s dialogue if the heat was too high.

Chili Dogs prepared for a Hill Street Snack…my favorite such snack:

At the fifteen minute commercial you hustle.  You run to the pantry and find a clogged artery in a can…Armour Star Chili.  You open the can and dump what you can into a pan and turn that heat up.  Grab another pan and fill it with water and put four hot dogs in it and turn that pan up to high to boil the wieners.  Before the the first break you grab an onion and some shredded cheese out of the fridge and put it on the counter to use during the long break at the bottom of the hour.  You also turn you oven to 375.

At the long thirty minute break your hot dogs and chili are getting there and are about ready.  Grab that onion and chop it up quickly…big chucks are okay. You grab a rectangular cookie sheet and put it on the counter.  Then you grab a package of hot dog buns out of the bread keeper.  If you feel you are losing time, you can rip open the package and take out your four buns.  You know you can put the leftover buns in a plastic bag later, if need be.  You then place you opened four buns on the cookie sheet.  Place a hot boiled wiener on each of the four buns.  Then pour your warmed up chili liberally over the hot dogs.  Grab a handful of onion and place it on a chili dog.  Repeat this three time over the other dogs.  Then pile each of your four chili dogs with as much shredded cheddar cheese as you have.  Put that in the oven…and about this time Hill Street is returning from its long commercial.  Watch the show and enjoy…as you look forward to the next commercial.

At the last commercial, you head to the kitchen and grab the biggest plate you have.  Take the chili dogs…covered in cheese and onion…out of the oven and place them on your plate…all of them.  Grab a fork and..since I was a growing boy…I poured a tall glass of 2% milk to go with it.

As you watch the final segment of Hill Street, you enjoy the Hill Street Snack and try not to get anything on the couch.

Wow.  Those were good times.

And probably why I am watching these shows in 2015 from the comfort of an elliptical machine as I sweat instead of eat.

It was worth it!

In fact, when I watch the final episode, I am going to take it over to my parent’s house and get my dear wife, Carrie, and our two boys, Jarrett and Cody, and I am going to make a Hill Street Snack for them one last time.  My culinary acumen is never better than when I am preparing a Hill Street Snack.  Thirty years later, I think I still have what it takes.

Let’s be careful out there.

Speaking the Rights.

Danny Johnson