#houseboating

Taking hot dog roasts to a new level of taste

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER NEAR CASSVILLE, WISCONSIN: Picture of a twilight on the river, a hot dog roast being uppermost on our minds ahead of the evening's break from houseboating.

And uppermost on our mind, something a little more old school: as in natural-casing weiners from a meat market in Cassville, some potato hot dog buns--and for some reason, a rather amusing condiment from England which Dum-Dum found on Amazon.com, ultimately after learning of it on some Facebook page given to funny labelling and brand names.

To wit: Daddie's Sauce, a somewhat fruity-tasting brown sauce whose key component is malt vinegar. Sort of in the vein of A-1 or Heinz 57 Sauce, only the colour is a little darker and the flavour undertones more pronounced.

"Certainly quite different than ketchup," Huckleberry Hound remarked. "Which," Dum-Dum explained, "is the attraction of it."

And even when you're around a fire pit of the classic sort, sitting on lawn chairs and grilling your hot dogs on old-school wooden twigs of decent length (except for Touché Turtle, preferring his fencing foil, bent tip and all, to so roast), the taste of coarsely-ground meats in a natural casing just sizzling from a driftwood fire ... on a potato bun ... with Daddie's Sauce all around, not to mention some kettle-cooked potato chips as well ... the twilight giving way to the blue of evening ... what more could life expect?

"Oh yes--our July 4th Character Convo," Huck remarked.

"In Clear Lake, Iowa, even," yours truly replieth. "And to think I spent some interesting time there a couple years back, just wasting some time ... and let's not forget when I ran across the Cattanooga Cats in performance at the Surf Ballroom; heavens to Buddy Holley, The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens even ..."

"I think I heard something about that encounter somewhere a while back," Bristlehound brought up. "The Cattanooga Cats ... in the Surf Ballroom, of all places!"

"All right, honey, YOU KNOOOOOOWWWWW WHAT I LIKE!!!" chimed forth all of us, channelling The Big Bopper.

"Which reminds me," Huckleberry remarked, "that I may want to do some check-ins with some of the fellow characters to remind them of same being in Clear Lake. And on the 4th of July weekend." Which was bound to take most of the night, but believe you me, thanks to text messaging, he managed to get the aide-mémoire out.

And one especially interesting response: Lippy the Lion, channelling the storied Japanese film character Tora-San, acknowledging he would be on his way.. Well ... before long, it'll be Clear Lake for us.

*************

So what attracted Bristlehound and Dum-Dum to houseboating and Friday fish fries?

ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER NEAR GUTTENBERG, IA: "Just think of it this way, Snagglepuss," explained Dum-Dum, storied boon companion of Touché Turtle, as to the backgrounder over some highly interesting German cuisine at a modest little cafe. "It all came up on the sidelines of a Character Convocation of ours coincident, I believe, with Steamboat Days back in Winona."

Bristlehound picks up the story:

"I do have to admit that this onetime Faithful Sheepdog Protector was at a loss for something new and exciting, wandering around for the most part. Up, down and on the ground, as the Cattanooga Cats put it, for the most part."

"So," Huckleberry Hound asked Bristlehound, "if I don't mind asking exactly, how did you come across the houseboat, to begin with?"

"Huck," observed Bristlehound, "Dum-Dum and I crossed paths out of nowhere back at Winona Steamboat Days, and over coffee and donuts, we stumbled across a 'for sale' ad on my mobile phone offering a housboat for sale, older model, owner wanted to get rid of same ... said he was moving in with relatives."

"And I believe he was getting up there in years," Dum-Dum added, "by his own admission over coffee to negotiate the sale. The house he had was older, with some siding put on a few years back concealing a mostly working-class patina going back. But he was somewhat on the affable side, like Touché 'himself.'"

"I'd have to concur there," Touché remarked over some potato pancakes he was dipping into some of the sauce for the Sauerbraten we were sharing. "The seller, admittedly, was a little surprised initially at my presence alongside Dum-Dum and Bristlehound, though Bristlehound did ask to clarify that saying along the Mississippi about those who could drive a car could also drive a houseboat ... and from experience, the guy selling it said 'yes' pretty much."

"Heavens to Mark Twain!" saith I.

"Though I admit we did have to get some coaching to understand the hang of things houseboating," Bristlehound remarked. "Mainly some short excursions, about as far as Trempeleau or Alma and back--"

"To get the feel of things," Dum-Dum noted.

"And, if I may just ask," asked I, "how much did you have to put down to get the houseboat?"

"If you count as much the houseboat as the lincence, registration and other incidentals," Bristlehound noted, "all in all, about $1,000. Pooled mostly between us out of some savings we managed to build up."

"So that explains everything," asked Huckleberry. "Meanwhile, what explains the Friday-evening fish fry interest?"

"We probably just stumbled unto it by chance," Bristlehound explained. "We took ourselves a little jaunt downriver after managing to get our houseboat, and stumbled across one of those 'quaint little drinking towns with a fishing problem,' borrowing from a tacky tourist trap T-shirt meme ... Friday evening, rather clement outside, tied our houseboat down at the local docks and checked the local bar to find out the local cuisine, and discovering the sheer popularity given to the fish fry."

"Oh yeah," Dum-Dum pointed out, "beer-battered fish, French fries galore, cole slaw and some decent sweet tea. The locals, it seems, can't get enough of it, or so the waitress assisting us explained it. Neither could the tourists."

"How did it all turn out?" Huckleberry explained.

"It was alright," Bristlehound explained. "Even if it was a little pricey, considering where we took walleye ... otherwise, cod is the most common choice, though the high price of cod could be enough to have some taverns consider other species just to stay afloat."

Touché Turtle chimed in by remarking that haddock and walleye are likely possibilities should cod get all the more pricey, "and blame overfishing, cutthroat competition from fishing crews in prime cod waters of the north Atlantic and depletion of stocks."

"Or bass," added I.

(At any rate, the sauerbraten we had was rather hearty-tasting, to say the least. Yet for some reason, the potato pancakes were remarkably not all that greasy.)

*************

They say "if you can drive a car--"

ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER NORTH OF DUBUQUE, IOWA: And just be grateful that, in anchoring our houseboat near certain railroad tracks on the Wisconsin side for the night, nothing serious managed to ensue with the passage of numerous freight trains ... or did it, especially in the sleep department?

But at any rate, Bristlehound explained over the morning bottles of Boost (that's a meal-replacement drink we're having for breakfast) that the interest he and Dum-Dum had in going the houseboating route on the Mississippi was one of getting laid back and just being at ease. "For some reason," as the onetime Faithful Sheepdog Protector of Lambsy explained, "the expression on the river about 'if you can drive a car, you can drive a houseboat' must be all the more true."

"Once you get the hang of it," Huckleberry Hound remarked.

And what could be more fascinating than the sheer freshness of a late spring-segueing-into-summer's day, a gentle sort of breeze blowing through the river valley, the bluffs providing a spectacle unto their own ... and no less than Touché Turtle "himself" on a deck chair on the front deck, air horn at the ready, yet still jaunty-looking in that plumed cap of his.

Somehow, the fascination of the river brings out something of the Tom Sawyer in all of us--or can it?

Over some limeade we were sharing, Touché Turtle made an Interesting Admission: "The idea you may have gathered from the opening title scenes of our flicktoons, about me going into battle with lightning--how I managed to survive it without becoming roasted turtle, or even turtle soup for that matter, and with a bent-tip foil such as I have, practically amazes me as much as Dum-Dum."

Which brought out the laughs.

And yet, one especially challenging sort of challenge in taking the houseboat route is managing to survive the wake from a rather massive collation of barges being pushed by a diesel barge tow. Which can get to be not only sizable, but can also require some stamina just managing to stay clear of such carrying the likes of grain, coal, crushed limestone, petroleum even. Especially with Bristlehound, Huck and yours truly sharing the steering duties and Dum-Dum monitoring the marine emergency radio channel (VHF channel 16) and the small craft radio channel (VHF channel 9), notwithstanding Touché trying to be as discreet as possible in emergencies ("Touché," Dum-Dum advised as we were getting underway back in Dubuque, "try not to overdo it on the swordplay; I may need to get a hold of you quickly in the cicumstances!").

Still, even on the river, chivalry has to have a place. Even over peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat bread, and the peanut butter being of the sort where the oil has to be mixed in.

*************

Personally, of the following specimens from The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, who would you imagine having this particular example of houseboat?

Honey and Sis, doing a series of surprise shortwave worldcasts from along the Upper Mississippi River

Bristlehound and Dum-Dum, on a lazy summer's excursion down said Upper Mississippi

The Cattanooga Cats, doing a series of impromptu concerts as well as just relaxing and working on new concert concepts

Someone among the Trollkins

[Where the likes of Dum-Dum and Bristlehound are living the houseboat vagabond's life, you might say, for awhile, and we find the duo on perhaps their second helping of battered fish more than anything]

BRISTLEHOUND: Would you be surprised to learn, Dum-Dum, where both The Banana Splits and the Cattanooga Cats are going to be at the Rex Beach Casino this summer?

DUM-DUM, somewhat dumbstruck: Uh, where exactly would this Rex Beach Casino be?

BRISTLEHOUND: On Lake Betty up in northern Minnesota. And just so you know, don't expect gambling at the Rex Beach Casino.

DUM-DUM: Why would that be exactly, Bristlehound?

BRISTLEHOUND: You might be amazed to know that "casino," in its literal sense, means "place of amusement," and doesn't necessarily carry gambling connotations in the Las Vegas vein.

DUM-DUM: And you have to wonder if maybe we could work up an act for one of the two concerts....

The sheepdogs being Dum-Dum, the boon companion of superhero-for-hire Touché Turtle ... and Bristlehound, Faithful Sheepdog Protector of Lambsy from The Ever-Devious Mildew Wolf.

And the houseboat being one of those which you can rent from marinas up and down the length of the Upper Mississippi River from roughly Hastings, Minnesota down to the Quad Cities, firm believers in the notion that if you can drive a car, you can drive a houseboat. Even if the one for the sake of this story is equipped with one of those Coleman stoves which require some semblance of skill and dexterity, even when refuelling same, chosen by our canine pair, we assume, just to keep the expenses down and “not put on airs” for the most part.

And you can just imagine our pair finding some refuge for the night parked on some sandbar as turns out being mostly dregde spoil aimed at reducing the sedimentation coming in off the Minnesota River and keeping the nine-foot channel clear commercially--but no matter; after all, they’re the sort as would prefer making anchor for the night at some island and sleep with their bedrolls on what’s essentially the roof of the houseboat, letting the horns of passing trains and the wake of barges in mid-channel provide the inspiration for their sleep.

Who could blame them, even if it’s likely their breakfast was bound to be in some cheesy cafe/tavern in some riverside town, with plenty of decent coffee in the bargain and the afternoons bound to be a mix of swimming and sun-worshipping ... not to mention realising such must be the best of buds?