Hot Plates
Certain dishes, eateries are tantalizing draws for many alums

Tom Mazias has served up the tasty Hotchee dog to generations of hungry Dickinsonians.

They’re not on the menu. They don’t have to be.

Look for the most famous 6-inch-long meal within walking distance of Dickinson College emblazoned on shirts worn by fast-moving employees of the Hamilton Restaurant—the venerable “Milt,” where Carlisle’s West High and North Pitt streets cross.

“Hot-chee-dog.” The word rolls off the tongue in much the same way a snowy cascade of fresh chopped onions spills from a mountain of chili atop a cheese-draped, just-grilled wiener in a bun. Add a dab of mustard and gobs of nostalgia. Hungry yet?

For Dickinsonians, Hotchee is the Greek-American word for health food. Mental health, that is. This dog is a hand-held heaping helping of tradition, a two-buck time machine.

“Personally, I think it’s the chili sauce that does it,” says Tom Mazias when asked what makes the Hotchee Dog habit forming.

Mazias, a Greek immigrant who has owned the Hamilton since 1975, figures he sells about 300 to 400 Hotchee Dogs weekdays and another 500 or so on Saturdays. By that math, Mazias has sold more than 3 million Hotchee Dogs.

It was invented by the Hamilton’s previous owners, Charlie and Mary Kollas, who opened the restaurant around 1940. Considering that Charlie was famous for lining up a dozen of the dogs at a time on his arms—and that up until 1975 the Hamilton sold them 24 hours a day—perhaps as many as 10 million Hotchee Dogs have been grilled, garnished and gobbled.

It’s no wonder then that in a 1960-era ad, Kollas compared his Hotchee to a classy Philadelphia hotel: “The Bellevue-Stratford Version of a Hot Dog Sandwich.”

These days, the Hotchee Dog is a survivor. The Hotchee habit afflicts Dickinson alumni more than it does current students, Mazias says. With everything from midnight pizza to ready-made salads to all-night microwaveables available, competition is stiff for the old downtown dog.

But watching Mazias’ nephew Athan make them by the dozens at the grill by the pink-curtained window, where orders fly in over the counter and over the phone, it’s obvious it’s still a labor of love.

Fixings make the meat almost optional. Mazias’ Kessler hot dogs bathe in 400 to 500 pounds of homemade chili a week. “In order to have something good, you’ve got to make it from scratch,” he explains.

There are spicier dogs—Yocco’s in Allentown, Pa., for instance—and more extravagant breeds, like the mustard-pickle-hot pepper-celery salt variety Chicago made famous, but don’t ask Mazias to change the Carlisle masterpiece whose legacy he judiciously tends behind his white apron and wry smile.

“Why change something good?” he says.

He’ll tell you other goodies haunt the Hamilton—club sandwiches and chicken sandwiches and ham sandwiches and Hotchee Burgers and really big breakfasts that’ll last past lunch.

Try ’em if you want, but start with a Hotchee Dog. As Mazias says, “It’s American as apple pie.”

Oh, he sells pie, too.

-David Smith

Erfle Aims to Demystify Wine

Descend the narrow stairway of the old house in the center of Carlisle, Pa. In dimly lit corners where shadows dart among racks and boxes of dusty-dry bottles, something scary dwells. Don’t be afraid.

Hold out your glass. Steve Erfle’s cellar is not haunted. It just seems that way to anyone afraid to begin an intimate relationship with wine.

Erfle, associate professor of international business & management, is ready to pop the cork on a new season of wine tastings after attracting nearly 70 satisfied sippers to Denny Hall on Alumni Weekend 2004. His wine-tasting road show has hit Washington, D.C.’s eclectic Dupont Circle; Long Island, N.Y.; Greenwich, Conn.; and other stops along the Dickinson alumni club circuit.

A native Northern Californian, Erfle first taught wine classes while he was a tutor at Leverett House at Harvard University, where he got his Ph.D. in economics. He also spent his 1994-95 sabbatical working as a managerial economist for Seagram Classics Wine Co., honing an extensive knowledge of the wine industry.

While his tastings mean good wine and good times, they also pour forth vintage education. Consider this quick sampling of wine wisdom:
Don’t laugh at “Two-buck Chuck.”

“It’s a good wine,” Erfle says, referring to the dry, $1.99-a-bottle Charles Shaw-labeled product that’s rocked the wine world with its bargain-basement price and lack of pretension.

Good wine doesn’t have to be expensive wine. “The biggest mistake American wine producers make is they try to mystify wine,” Erfle explains. “[Two-buck Chuck] is the edge of a movement. … It is a double-edged sword. With a non-mystique-based product you can’t get as much money for it, but you can sell it to a wider audience.”

That old fish story is wrong.

“The biggest mistake people make is white wine with fish, red wine with meat. It’s a huge misconception,” Erfle says. “Wine-and-food pairing is more tied to sauce preparation technique. The weight of the wine should match the weight of the food.”

For example, filet of sole and blackened tuna are both fish, but consider a red wine with the latter.

Learn the basics: Chardonnay is a grape, Bordeaux is a place, and zinfandel is not just a white wine.

A great lesson wine novices are quick to collect from Erfle is that American wine is marketed around the grape, while European wine is mostly about location, primarily exotic parts of the French countryside.

And, to the surprise of many, zinfandel is also a red wine and a very good one from the same grape—now traced to Primativo in the heel of Italy’s boot—that produces the ubiquitous white zinfandel and was once a geographic mystery.

“Americans have taken [the zinfandel grape] further than anyone else,” Erfle says.

American wine is world class. American reds and whites dominated the Paris Tasting of 1976, and the French have been running for cover ever since.

“There are interesting wines made all over the place, too,” he adds. “Chadds Ford is a good chardonnay out of Pennsylvania. There’s a really nice chardonnay out of Front Royal, Va., and nice reds from the Finger Lakes region in New York.

“Winemaking technology has come a long way beyond basic biochemistry. Winemakers have cleaned up their production processes. As a result, you have solid wines even in mediocre years.”

Don’t save that $6.99 bottle of Corbett Canyon merlot and expect it to increase in value.

“Less than 5 percent of wine is made to age,” Erfle says. “The reason is purely driven off what the market wants. Ninety-five percent of wine is consumed within 48 hours of purchase.”
Besides, the wine savored by collectors and investors is much more expensive.

Be daring. If you have a dinner party, don’t buy two or three bottles of the same wine. The main thing we celebrate with wine is variety.

After all, wine is a voyage of discovery. If you like chardonnay, buy four different chardonnays.Hide the labels, then explore the differences. And, Erfle says, hold the cheese; for the best wine-tasting experience, cleanse the pallet with unbuttered bread.

Trust your own preferences.

“What’s good is what tastes good to you,” Erfle says.

—David Smith

For information on Erfle’s upcoming wine
tastings, check out the Dickinson Clubs at: www.dickinson.edu/alumni/clubs

The Coolest Place in Town

Massey’s Frozen Custard is the first sign of spring and the last gasp of summer. The little white and green, retro building on High Street promises an early fall chocolate-dipped treat in a cone, or a cup of cold, creamy comfort during final exams in the spring.

“Everything here has stayed pretty much the same since it opened in 1949,” says co-owner Darlene Brown, a Carlisle native who bought the business in 1997. The menu has expanded a bit—there are more flavors, plus a few sugar-free and fat-free choices. But Massey’s is a rare and pleasant constant. It’s not bigger, not smaller, no more fancy and no less tidy than the Massey’s you remember. And the custard still tastes like it’s supposed to.

“We’re not open far enough into the school year for Dickinson students to work here or spend a lot of time here,” Brown says. But its inescapable location—across from the Kline Center—makes it as much a part of campus as the Quads or Biddle Field, if only for a few brief and shining weeks.

The rest of the school year, Massey’s is depressingly inaccessible. Well before autumn turns cool, a sign reading “Closed for the Season” is plastered to the front of the building. But for two weeks on either side of summer vacation, there is a small window of opportunity.

Step up, order a split, shake or malt. It’s a brain-freeze delight.

—Barbara Snyder Stambaugh

Singing the Praises of Tea Cooler

If you see Alumni Council member Erik Michael ’98 at a campus event, you can be sure he’s on the prowl for Tea Cooler. Yes, that sweet, refreshing blend of tea and lemonade that is distinctively Dickinson. While many alumni and current students sing its praises, no one can rhapsodize like Michael, a former music major who now is assistant director of corporate relations for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It was love at first drink, from the moment he arrived on campus 10 years ago.

“Where I come from [West Virginia] we never combined iced tea and lemonade to create this amazing beverage. I just needed more and more.”

When he went home for the summer after spring term, he was left high and dry. Back on campus in the fall, “I had kind of forgotten about it. Then there it was again. I couldn’t get enough of it. I remember sitting around with friends and having conversations about Tea Cooler:

‘How much did you miss Tea Cooler?’

‘Oh, you have no idea. I’ve been drinking Pep-si all summer, and now it’s back to normal here.’

“We definitely showed the obsession.”

Keith Martin, director of dining services, confirms that Michael is not alone in his unquenchable thirst for Tea Cooler.

“We started serving Tea Cooler many years ago, but within my time,” Martin says. “I’m in my 18th year. It was so popular at catering events [where it was exclusively served] that we started putting in juice machines in the cafeteria and buying it by the gallon. Each machine would hold two to three gallons. We convinced the producers to manufacture five-gallon bags.”

The original Tea Cooler, made by Lenkerbrook Farms Inc., was a newfangled beverage back in the ’80s, he says. “Now everyone has a knockoff.” Martin confirms the continued popularity among today’s students. “On the normal school day we go through 200 to 300 gallons.”

The current Dickinson supplier, Swiss Premium Farms Inc. of Lebanon, Pa., recently began stocking Tea Cooler in Wal-Mart stores in south central Pennsylvania. Michael found it a few weeks ago at the Wal-Mart just 15 minutes from his home.

“Right there in the refrigerator thing was a gallon of Tea Cooler. I was beside myself. I said to my wife [Jennifer Gura ’98], ‘Do you see this?’ She said, ‘Please don’t make a scene.’

“It’s the closest I’ve been to Tea Cooler since I’ve been to school,” Michael says excitedly. “Now I can have it in the house as much as possible. But I have to treat it as a special gift. I don’t want to get sick and tired of it. When I feel I deserve a treat, like ice cream, I go to Wal-Mart to get a gallon of Tea Cooler, and I’m happy.”

—Sherri Kimmel

Clamoring for the Clambake

Whether it’s the food or the company that provides the draw, one thing is certain—the annual Alumni Weekend Clambake is a crowd pleaser that many folks return to year after year.

“It’s the first event of the weekend that gets people together, and that’s what it’s all about, making contacts with those you knew and didn’t know,” Chris Winner ’79 said at this year’s bash, where the software development vice president from Castaic, Calif., clustered with classmates to begin 25th-year reunion festivities. Sidekick Edward Traub ’79, a marketing executive from Potomac, Md., unabashedly confessed to filling his plate three or four times with mounds of steamed clams, steamed shrimp, fresh corn on the cob and other delights.

True, people come to see their friends, admitted Keith Martin, director of dining services. “But the food is the icing on the cake.”

And what an icing. About 425 alums each year run through 3,500 littleneck clams alone. And let’s not forget the broiled portobello mushrooms and peppers with cherry tomato relish and those hunky desserts.

Executive Chef Jack O’Donnell is the guy behind the recipes, which include what Martin calls “a crab bisque to die for. It’s crab and heavy cream. How can it get much better?”

“Yes, it is full-bodied,” said O’Donnell. Like all the soups served on campus the bisque is made from scratch. But it’s only prepared for the Clambake.

Due to rainy weather the event was held this year in the dining hall, which didn’t have the usual ambiance of tent-side dining on Morgan Field. But to Kevin Hess ’69, the setting was no impediment.

“The event is wonderful for its informality—good food and drink and no expectation beyond having a good time. It works, even inside the dining hall,” Hess, a Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas judge, said as he made the rounds at his 35th-year reunion.

Cindy Murphy ’76, also of Carlisle, has been a perennial attendee since the late 1980s. Murphy, exhibits manager for the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, said, “Of all the alumni events we always make sure we go to the Clambake. When it’s outside it’s a really relaxing evening. I liked it when they used to have a jazz band. People would stay and socialize and listen to music.”

While Murphy goes for the chance to see friends of her era this one time each year, her husband, Dave Zug, a psychologist at the Dauphin County Prison, goes for the food—in particular the steamed clams and charcoaled beef flank steak au jus—and the open bar, she said. Daughter Gretchen, 5, also looks forward to the event. “She especially loves the music; she’s dancing all night long.”

If you ask William Boucher ’79’s opinion, though, the clams are not the icing on his cake.

“They are wee clams,” the CPA from Browns-ville, Pa., pointed out. “So it’s not about the Clambake. You could serve hotdogs. It’s really about the people not the food.” •

—Sherri Kimmel

Dickinson College, PO Box 1773, Carlisle, PA 17013, 717-243-5121