Dips are a flawless tier of food, where another piece of delicious food is your utensil. What’s not to love? My affinity for dips started at a young age: the best after school snack was chips o mast: chips with a yogurt based dip. This was usually Utz or Ruffles paired with thick yogurt mixed with mayo or sour cream, Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper. This dip became my party trick in college: simultaneously, a way to feed my friends while feeding my own nostalgia and homesickness. I now make many variations on this dip (throw in lime juice! swap dried herbs for fresh ones! add olive oil!) and love to pair it with Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream flavor. It is my ultimate comfort food. It’s also the sustenance my parents had when they weren’t able to prepare or buy a full meal. When there were just the crumbs of a chip bag left, we made “soup” (lol), which meant crushing the chips up in the bag, pouring them into the dip, and eating it with a spoon. Indulgence and crunch in every single bite. Yum.
I love dips so much that I hosted a “Dip Off” in 2019, with the following cheesy invitation:
Guest were required (strongly encouraged) to bring in a dip of their choice + a dipper, and there were prizes for 1) best tasting dip 2) most creative dip 3) best dipper. Each guest had tiny index cards to vote for their winners as more dips (and people) showed up. There were over twenty dips and dozens of people in attendance, coming in waves and overwhelming guests/voters, some of whom filled up on the beautiful early arrivals: buffalo chicken dip, spinach artichoke dip, roasted feta dip. My partner maybe cheated — he made a Minnesota-style tater tot hot dish, but added ‘dip’ to the title of that hearty entree, and because he is kind and Midwestern, very few people called him out on it. I made my famous chips o mast and a velvety black bean dip that requires instant coffee and a stick of butter.
Friends and loved ones showed up and showed out for this occasion. I tended to everyone’s beverages and ensured Christina Milian’s “Dip It Low” played at least three times that night. Drew + Sam woke up early to smoke an entire salmon for smoked salmon dip, which won the Best Tasting prize: a novelty dinosaur themed chips and dip platter. Adam scoured ten different bodegas before procuring Teddy Grahams for his cookie dough dip, which won Best Dipper. Meghann’s guava and cream cheese dip was Most Creative. Laila showed up fashionably late with a homemade chimichurri that sparked so much dialogue and had several people change their votes. This chimichurri was so good, one party guest explored delivering a steak to the party because it warranted such a pairing. My friends hounded me for Laila’s recipe afterwards. Like the Dip Off™️ itself, there was so much magic in Laila’s chimichurri that recreating it would be futile. It just wouldn’t be the same.
If you can’t already tell, I still fantasize about the Dip Off. I envisioned this would be an annual celebration back in 2019, and two years later I don’t know when I can safely organize a dip off again. Should each chef dish out their dip + accouterments in single serving sizes with gloves, like samples at Costco? Asking party guests to cook something feels like enough work, making them dish it out just doesn’t sound fun. It also inhibits folks (Ed note: I’m folks) from overeating their favorite dip without shame or guilt.
Maybe the Dip Off was always meant to be a one-off, and it will remain much more magical that way. Who knows. I’d love to hear about your favorite dips, ones that bring you flavor, comfort, joy, heartiness, with hopes of including them in a future newsletter. And if you have any ideas on how to hold a safe Dip Off, I’m here for it. ✌️