Condiment Corner: Mustard

Mustard.  I've loved mustard since I was a kid.  I'm not sure why I ever even tried it, but once I did, there was no stopping me.  As a kid, I kept it simple: whatever mom had in the fridge, which was typically French's classic yellow in that super big yellow squeeze bottle.  I mostly had it on my hot dogs and hamburgers, occasionally on my french fries.  My sister actually turned me on to one of my favorite applications of mustard: on pork chops.  And while watching America's Test Kitchen recently, I learned that mustard and mustard-based glazes and sauces are actually a preferred pairing with many pork cuts - they're very complimentary flavors.  Who my sister was such a culinary whiz way back then?  A side note on the socially acceptable use of mustard: per popular conventions, it is only acceptable to put ketchup on a hot dog until age 10, afterwhich mustard is the socially acceptable condiment.  Words to live by, if you ask me.
At some point during my grade school years, most likely while spending one of many spring breaks at my grandparents' house, Grandpa Kuhl introduced me to the delicious variation that is...Gulden's.  Grandpa may not have been classy (read "pompous") enough for Grey Poupon, but he did like his Gulden's.  He would lay it on thick on one half of his sandwich, whether it was bologna or turkey or ham...or a weiner (as Grandma Kuhl would say).  After one taste, I knew that regular yellow mustard just wouldn't cut it any more.  Of course, it took a while to win my mom over - and by a while, I mean until my sister moved out for college, and I was pretty much the only one eating mustard.  In the meantime, I was only able to get my Gulden's fix when I visited Grandma and Grandpa.
Now that I'm older  and can buy my own groceries (or at least beg my wife to buy them for me on her next trip to the store), I've found that the world of mustards is pretty wide open.  Some of my favorite varieties include those by Jack Daniels.  I really like the "brown" mustards and some of the nicer, thicker types are pretty good, too.  But the best mustard I've found is one I've only found on a rare occasion: Cleveland Stadium Mustard.  It comes in a little glass jar with a pretty plain logo - red with white scrip letters.  It even has its own website - www.stadiummustard.com - where you can order it by the case.  And while it pains me to say that Cleveland has done something better than Cincinnati or even Dayton, at least it's not Heinz!