The Legend of the Corndog Casserole

Brent has always had a pretty good sense of humor when it comes to my efforts in the kitchen.  Whether it's a new recipe or a trial run of my own creation he's quite tactful at letting me know that it might not be something to make again.  "Not really my favorite but someone else might like it".  Or, "It was interesting".  Or, "The salad was really good".  Only one time has he ever flat out said please don't ever make that again because it was disgusting.  Corndog casserole.

My brother had been on the road, touring with a Broadway production, and was in town for the show's run in Denver.  We hadn't seen him in almost six months and were really excited for him to come up for dinner.  I decided to try a new recipe I'd found in a magazine that was touted as tasting like corndogs in a baking dish.  Hot dogs, cornbread batter, a can of corn and seasoning all mixed together and dumped in a dish to bake.  I know, I look at it now and wonder why on earth I thought that was a good idea.  We sat down to eat and I served everyone up.  Brent took a bite and made a face that still brings a smile to my face when I think of it.  Amanda, who was five at the time, took a bite and promptly said, "Mommy, this doesn't taste very good".  Tiffany picked a bite up with her fork, sniffed it and wouldn't even put it in her mouth.  Now I don't know if it was because my brother had been on the road for so long without a home cooked meal or because he was just an early twenties kid who would eat anything, but he ate the entire 9x13 pan of it all by himself while we all sat there and watched him do it.  Once the pan was empty he proceded to scrape everyone else's plate clean and then asked if there was any more.  At least the salad was really good.  Although I guess lettuce with salad dressing is kind of hard to mess up.

Eating that entire pan of yuck is something we gave my brother a hard time about for a lot of years, although he always maintained that it was delicious.  It's a memory of him that I cherish now.