The Dogs:

2 packs high-quality ball-park style wieners*
1 gallon bottled water*
2 packs super-fresh hot dog buns
2 cups hot chili (without beans)
2 cups shredded mild Cheddar cheese
2 cups sweet Vidalia onions, moderately chopped
Mayonnaise, yellow mustard, Creole mustard, catsup, and pickle relish

Start off with a pot of water deep enough to submerge all the wieners.  Then bring the water to a rapid boil.  Immediately, drop the wieners into the water and reduce the flame to medium-low (so that the water just gently boils).
           
At this point, put the lid on the pot (but leave a crack in the cover to allow excess steam to escape).  After about 10 minutes in “the soup,” lower the heat once more to simmer, just high enough to keep the wieners hot for service.
           
If you’re an American, you know the rest: open up a bun, lightly butter it and toast it in a skillet, lay a hot wiener inside the bun, then cover it with all the condiments—mayo, yellow mustard, piping hot chili, shredded cheese, a fistful of chopped onions, and whatever else you like on your hotdog. 
           
Now dig in. . .and Happy Fourth of July!
           
Hint:  The wieners can remain in the warm water for an indefinite period of time.  I don’t recommend those hotdogs that are “not poached.”  Taking a wiener right from the package and throwing in onto a hot grill or—worse yet!—in a microwave oven, just ain’t the way to go!  Those methods don’t bring out the subtlety of the flavor, but even worse they concentrate the salt content to almost intolerable heights!  Poach your dogs, y’all! 

The Burgers:

1 lb. ground chuck
1 lb. ground sirloin
1 cup finely chopped onions*
3 well-beaten eggs + 3 Tbsp. bottled water
1 bottle Frank Davis Beef Seasoning
1 bottle coarse-ground black pepper
2 pats sweet cream butter or Pam Spray
2 packs super-fresh hamburger buns
3 thinly sliced tomatoes
8 shredded leaves iceberg lettuce
2 sweet Vidalia onions, thinly sliced
1 jar Kosher dill hamburger slices
1 package shredded mild Cheddar cheese or sliced Velveeta Cheese
Mayonnaise, yellow mustard, Creole mustard, and catsup
1 large bag ruffled potato chips on the side
           
You can do these Fourth of July hamburgers either on an open grill or in a cast iron grill pan.  But either way, they’re put together virtually the same way.
           
On a clean cutting board, make the burgers one at a time by taking a half-handful of ground chuck and a half-handful of ground sirloin (it’s imperative that you use both to end up with the right consistency and the juiciness you expect in a homemade burger) and smooshing them together. 

Then, once on the cutting board, spoon onto the meat a tablespoon or two of the egg-water mixture, a couple of tablespoons of chopped onion, and a dash or two of the beef seasoning and black pepper. 
           
Then, with a Chinese cleaver or two metal egg turners, chop the ingredients together to form a rough, well mixed patty—but don’t overwork it; the meat will get chewy if you do! 
           
It’s just that simple, y’all!  Now you can take your hands, moisten them ever so lightly, and pat out a burger, ideally about ½ to ¾-inch thick.  Repeat the procedure until you’ve used up all the ground beef.  Then either drop them on an open grill or plop them down into a red-hot cast iron grill pan and cook them until a beautiful brown crust forms on the outside and you can no longer see “pink” on the inside. 
           
All that’s left at this point is to dress up your burger just the way you like it, pop open your favorite chilled beverage, grab a handful of chips, and celebrate “The Fourth…
American-Style!”

The Dungeness Crabs:*

1-1/2 gallons bottled water
2 Tbsp. Kosher salt
1 Tbsp. granulated seafood boil
5 lbs. Dungeness crab leg clusters
4 fresh lemons, sliced in halves
1 lb. clarified butter
           
Start off by bringing the gallon-and-a-half of water to a rolling boil.  Then immediately stir in the Kosher salt and the granulated seafood boil.  At this point, taste the water and if you’d like it saltier or spicier, add a little extra Kosher salt and seafood boil.
           
When the water is flavored just to your liking, again bring it to a rolling boil.  Then immediately drop in the crab leg clusters.  The water will stop boiling.  When it comes back to a boil, time the crabs for exactly 4 minutes and them remove them from the water and set them on a platter momentarily.
           
When they cool down to where you can handle them without burning your fingers, whip up your lemon butter mixture, extract (pick) the crabmeat from the shells, dip the pieces in the butter, and relish the treasure! 
           
That’s all there is to it!  In fact, the less you do to the crabs the better!  Because the meat from the legs are mild, delicate, and flavorful—it would be a shame to cover that up by over-doing it!
           
Hint: To make drawn lemon-butter, melt down 2 sticks of a high-quality salted butter; then set it aside for a while.  In the meantime, microwave 2 fresh lemons for about 15-20 seconds to release the juice from the pulp.  Then slice the lemons in half.  And after you pour off the clarified butter, leaving the white milk solids behind, squeeze the lemons into the cleared butter and stir it around thoroughly.  This is all you need to tear into the crabs!  From this point on, it’s “dip and eat.”

========

Chef’s Notes:

Ballpark style wieners are those big, ol’ juicy ones that plump up when you fix them!

When poaching wieners for hot dogs, always poach them in bottled water to ensure that you get a “clean” taste, free of minerals and water additives.  It does make a difference.

Instead of using just finely chopped onions in your burgers, you can substitute the pre-packaged chopped seasoning mixture, which can be found in the produce section of most supermarkets.

Preparation methods for all three deep-water crab species—Dungeness, snow, and king—are one and the same. Heat through in boiling water and eat directly from the shell.

Usually, Dungeness, snow, and king crabs are sold by the pound.  A reasonable serving is one pound per person (two pounds if that person is really hungry!).

Dungeness, snow, and king crabs arrive in our Southern supermarkets flash-frozen and fully cooked.  It’s a process that happens immediately after the crabs are off-loaded from their harvest in Northern waters to keep them from spoiling.

I absolutely do not recommend that you eat ground meat in any form that isn’t fully cooked, no pink visible at all.  Follow this simple advice and you won’t have to fret about getting food-borne illnesses.