The Genetic Love of Ranch Dressing

I have a small confession. No, I didn't hack up some telemarketer into a thousand pieces, though I have frequently been tempted just to make an example. Okay, get ready for it 'cause I'm just gonna blurt it out.
I love ranch dressing!
Now, I realize I am far from alone in this. In spite of the culinary snobs who deem this "redneck food," I am not scared to step out on a cultural limb and declare from village to dell that I freakin' love this shit. I would eat it on just about anything. In fact, I can't figure out for the fat ass life of me just why those geniuses at Baskin Robbins haven't nixed one of the 25 flavors of chocolate and rolled out a ranch flavor in its place. Apart from that ever-addicting sushi and Bud Light, ranch dressing is my favorite food on the globe.
But, as I explained in my quest to Shine in 2009 (which you need to re-read so you can help keep me to all my resolutions), I would like to reduce my rather sizable ass into one that can be divided between just two women as opposed to the five it would take to tote this bitch around right now. I've been eating steamed vegetables and rice and have even been letting my kids come with me to Wal Mart without their normal kiddie leash on, you know, so I can get my daily exercise sprinting after the two of them as they dart in two opposite directions in search of toys and candy. What can I say, I'm a regular Gene, I mean, Richard Simmons. But there are just some foods you can't part with and, for me, ranch dressing is at the top of that list.
Anyways, as of last night, I came to believe that the deep love of ranch dressing might be genetic, you know, like some folks swear the love of beer is. After I cooked supper and then made plates for all the penis-bearing members of our household, I went to the back end of the house to hang up some wrinkly clothes. At first, I heard nothing but silence, the familiar sound of two boys and their equally ornery father stuffing their bellies with pork chops and the fixins. After a few minutes, the noise came back and I knew the funny business would restart promptly.
Just as I pulled the last shirt from the basket, my youngest boy Rolan tip-toed into our room, a smile on his face with evidence of mischief in his eyes. My room was dark, so it took me a second to notice it.
And just what was "it," you ask. Well, pull up a chair and I will tell you, friends.
"It" was the creamy, white semi-circle that started at Rolan's chin, curving from one cheek to the next while peaking at his button nose. At first, I didn't see it and then I couldn't figure out just what it was. And then I remembered -- I made a jug of homemade ranch dressing. His face looked as though he had a beard of pure dairy delight.
Immediately, I knew a mess of near Biblical proportions awaited me somewhere within our house. I asked Rolan where the dressing was and he responded by acting as though he hadn't heard a damn word I said because he was so simply too consumed with running his chubby fingers through the sauce of his chin and then licking off his spoils. I left my laundry in the bedroom to find a sports-consumed husband kicked back in his lazy boy blissfully unaware that Rolan had gotten into the ranch dressing. Walking by scanning the room for some white explosion, I asked Rowdy if he'd heard or seen the boy getting into anything. Naturally, his response was no, which was no fucking surprise to me since
I searched high and low. I looked in the boys' rooms, behind the television, hell, even on the front porch. I couldn't find the dressing jug, but aside from Rolan's face smothered in dressing, I could not spot the crime scene, either.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few splatters of a creamy, white something behind the refrigerator. Slowly, I inched closer and, as I did, I noticed more and more dressing. Apparently Rolan had swiped the shit, which is awesome, and then snuck behind the frig to basically, well, drink that shit. And in the process, he had also managed to pour it in the vents on the backside of the frig, into the carpet and down cracks in our wall I previously did not know existed. It was an unholy fucking mess.
Naturally Rowdy chuckled, which made perfect sense to me since he wasn't the one shimmying his fat ass behind a large appliance to then scrub a dairy explosion off an entire corner of our house. I'm sure it would have been a real freakin' knee slapper to me, too.
After I hosed down the refrigerator, I had to repeat the process on Rolan. He had to be bathed and his formerly clean pajamas had to be replaced. As I scrubbed the smiling two year old from top to bottom, I noticed just how much he really seemed to enjoy his big gulps of ranch dressing. Laughing at our shared passion, I then realized that he might have inherited more than just my deep love of salad dressing. I mean, holy bejesus, what if he feels the way his mother does about day drinking and cuss words and jokes that would make most sailors blush? Holy shit, I may have created a monster.

Only in America

So, I've been trying to lose weight, which has been no easy feat considering how much I love eating and cooking and what a fantastic metabolism my husband and sons have. In order to consume waistline-friendly fare, I often end up preparing two meals. Not long ago, though, I discovered a small remedy for this conundrum -- homemade sushi. Through the magic of amazon.com, I can order nori, the seaweed wrap that serves the purpose of a Japanese tortilla. Lyndi gave me a bamboo rolling mate about a year ago and rice vinegar can be purchased at Homeland or United. Of course, sashimi-grade fish isn't readily available in Western Oklahoma. I can buy it on the internet, but it is expensive and must be used quickly. So, for those reasons, I normally stick to sushi rolls made with imitation crab meat, which is honestly pretty cost efficient.
While the sushi roll I started out making at home was a California Roll or something close to it, the need for something new has sparked my creativity. Typically I stick to the rice and crab with a touch of avocado, cream cheese and sesame seeds, but I like to randomly add new ingredients just to mix things up. I'm a rebel like that.
So, while I was strolling through the grocery store today, I spotted a bag of "Snow Pea Crisps" in the vegetable aisle. The package had a picture of snow peas. Not some snow pea mutation or a chip that was colored in the limey shade of snow peas. Now, it was very clearly a snow pea on the package. Since I've seen snow peas served at sushi restaurants, both fresh and dried, I thought this would be something nice to have on hand to add to my rolls periodically.
When I opened the bag, I quickly realized that this was not the dried snow peas I thought they where. No, these were basically chips made with a trace of snow peas. Now, don't get me wrong, these bastards were good, real good. When I pulled my oily hand from the bag, it looked as though I'd been emerging it in a finger-lickin' bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Since my taste buds have always been such avid supporters of all things fried, they were pleasantly surprised at this new revelation. I flipped the bag to the label and, low and behold, 20 pieces of these processed peas scored an impressive 150 calories, 10 fat grams and 15 carbohydrates. The list of ingredients that staged the corruption of the formerly pure vegetables included corn oil and rice. Now I have no doubt that the peas, fried, salted and all, are healthier than, say, pork rinds. But is that really that comforting?
As a fat ass, I feel like I am entitled to speak for us all. And by the way, this is in no way pointing blame to anyone else for the ba-donk-a-donk I have to lure into my jeans. After I read the label of doom, I feed the snow peas to my quite thankful border collie. He gave the mouth-watering snack high marks. With that said, I'm quite certain this new delicacy isn't something you'd find in a grocery store anywhere else in the world. If you did, it would definitely be stocked with the junk food and would probably only be there in the first place because some American had moved to town.
So, for all you lazy readers, the ones who would've probably thought the unexpected tastiness to have been caused by magic, we are now deep-frying snow peas and serving them up as healthy treats. Only in America, right?