By Gene Boyle, Executive Chef, Malcolm Whitaker, Executive Sous Chef

Welcome Back from Spring Break! We hope you had a fun time abroad, at home or wherever the week may have taken you.

This week brings many things, the first day of April, hopefully some warmer weather and our favorite time of year, the start of the Phillies season. We are going to be celebrating Opening Day with Hot Dogs from Around the Ballparks. In 2010 more than 21 million hot dogs were consumed at ballparks alone.

When researching this topic, we realized hot dogs and baseball go together like peanut butter and jelly. Every stadium has some sort of specialty hot dog that it is known for. Citizens Bank Park even let their fans choose their signature hot dog last season, The South Philly Dog, an all-beef frank with sharp provolone, spicy peppers, broccoli rabe on an Italian roll.

Most stadiums offer an all-beef hot dog as the base of their dog while others use a local favorite. Milwaukee offers bratwursts, Seattle naturally serves a fried cod sandwich and Pittsburgh has the hot sausage. Across the country favorite regional toppings are native to each stadium.

Thursday we will be featuring the Atlanta Braves Georgia Dog, Chicago Cubs Chicago Style Dog, Milwaukee Brewers Brat, and the New York Yankees New York Dog. Think we are missing one? Let us know. Maybe we will add your favorite.