The holiday season is over which means the I'm-going-to-eat-all-the-cheese-and-all-the-cookies-and-drink-all-the-holiday-cocktails season is also over.
A moment of silence, please.
I’ve written about my mom’s sweet tooth, my husband’s love of sweets, in fact, I seem to always be surrounded by loved ones who love all things sweet.
It’s time to talk about me and my cravings. If there’s a table filled with sweets and one tray with dip, I’m ignoring the cookies, the cakes, the chocolate. I’m taking the bowl of dip and hiding in the corner with it for a private moment. If there was cake or cookies or doughnuts in the break room at work, I could walk right past them and not pick up one. For me, it’s all about salty and crunchy goodness.
It’s all about a bowl of dip.
French onion dip was my first love. Many of you can probably relate.
I found the above photo while researching this issue and it brought joy to my heart. I even found this article written a handful of years ago about Lawson’s dip.
There was a Lawson’s corner store near my childhood home. Seeing a container of this chip dip in the fridge made my heart skip a beat. Even after Lawson’s closed its stores, it still sold its dip. My aunt was my dip enabler. Years later, when I’d come home for a visit from college, she’d surprise me with a container of this dip. Who knows where she had to go to get it.
French onion was my gateway dip, but so many others followed. My aunt was the one who introduced all of us to spinach dip. You know the one. The recipe was on the back of the Knorr’s vegetable mix package. Usually the dip was served in a pumpernickel bread bowl. I remember thinking it was so cool to help make that dip. And by help, I mean tearing out the middle of the bread to make the bowl.
Around the same time, platters of fruit and dip started to become popular. That was too sweet for me. I wanted savory, salty, crunchy.
Mom introduced me to the next phase of my dip obsession. She started to make plates of Mexican dip. It quickly became my favorite. At first, she made it on the sly. The base of the dip was cream cheese and cottage cheese. She knew that if she told me cottage cheese was an ingredient I’d never eat it.
I’ve made that dip so many times, there’s no need to look at the recipe. Whipped cream cheese and cottage cheese, taco sauce, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, cheddar cheese, green onion, and olives. Since I live with an olive hater, only half of it gets covered with olives now.
Mom would buy dried dip spice mixes at general stores or spice stores. There was a stellar dill dip mix that she and I loved. I’ve tried so many times to recreate that dill dip without success. Recently, I found a recipe for a vegetable crudité dip. I was jubilant to find that it was just like Mom’s old school dill dip.
Later on, she and I became big fans of hot dips, like artichoke, Buffalo chicken, and even fancy crab.
When G and I lived in Naples the first time, my friend, Cheryl, came to visit. We found this amazing dip at Lucky’s, then my favorite grocery store. (I’m still bitter about losing Lucky’s. Thanks a lot, Kroger.) The base of the dip was Jarlsberg cheese. Cheryl and I ate it up and she made sure to remember the ingredients listed on the label. Cheryl, if you’re out there, please share that recipe with us in the comments!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss dippers while writing about my dip love.
You name a dipper and I’ve tried it. Of course, a potato chip (Mom loved Lay’s, Dad loved Ruffles…symbolic of their incompatibility). Corn chips, pita chips, Sun chips (do they still make those?), tortilla chips, and pretzels. Crackers of all kinds…rice and water, saltines, Wheat Thins, Ritz, Sociables, Triscuits, Bacon, Chicken in a Bisket. Vegetables of all kinds…carrots, celery, cucumber, radishes, green beans, strips of bell pepper, broccoli and cauliflower.
By the end of the holidays, G is raiding the freezer for the last of the cookies. I’m raiding the fridge for the last of the dips I made as appetizers. If there’s a tablespoon left, I’ll keep it for when I need to grab a cracker and swipe that last savory bite.
And now it’s January. It’s time to reestablish good eating habits after the decadence of December.
Au revoir, French onion.
I care about you. Please don’t forget to eat your greens.
Loved this! I giggled at "(Mom loved Lay’s, Dad loved Ruffles…symbolic of their incompatibility)."
Oooooohhhh dips! One of my love languages! I LOVE dips as well and remember all that you talked about, because, well, we’ve eaten most of those together at one time or another!
The spinach dip has water chestnuts which always seemed so exotic as a child. Lol. I also regularly make your moms taco dip. It’s a game day favorite now! I also love making salsa and playing around with those flavors - roasted, fresh, cooked, etc.
My Trader Joe’s store has a whole DIP SECTION!! 💕 Each time I go I try a new one. Recently I picked up a blue cheese pecan dip and some pears. It was pretty delicious! I’m big on texture and balance of flavors. So this dip, some seeded gf crackers, sliced pears and quality honey were an amazing snack! I also love making hummus and dip all sorts of things in it. I like mine creamy, extra garlicky and very lemony! I’m a sucker for any cookbook that has a Dips and Spreads section! I have countless pinned dip recipes in Pinterest!
Jarlsburg dip. 💕 Has become one of my faves. I can’t give you exact measurements (one, because I never measure and two, it kind of depends on the cheese and type of Mayo)
I normally (yes, normally because I make this probably every 6-8 weeks) buy a chunk of good Jarlsbug that will make several batches. I hand grate the cheese on the large holes. The ingredients are the cheese, mayo, lemon juice and red onion. The amounts are kind of a preference on how creamy you like it. The cheese guy at Luckys market said “it’s just enough mayo to make the cheese stick together” so start with a teaspoon at a time. I start with about a cup of grated cheese. I chop my red onions very small (about a tablespoon worth) and squeeze some lemon juice over them, adding a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper. I feel like this mellows the onions. Then mix those in. If you need more mayo after that you can add it. It should just hold together. I use an avocado oil mayo and really like that flavor. Dukes is also great brand. It will last a week in the fridge - or so they say. It never lasts that long here!
Fun post!! Maybe we should write a dip cookbook?
- a fellow dipster 🙂