Wednesday, May 29th

Dip Night

Even though this site has only existed for a week, I have gotten innumerable questions about one thing: the Pillsbury Bakeoff (see "FAQ"). Most of these questions, emailed or phoned, have a generally sneery tone to them, as though entering the Bakeoff is some sort of ridiculously middlebrow pursuit.

Listen up. For a million dollars -- that's right, one million smackers is the prize awarded to the Bakeoff's ultimate winner -- I will happily put on my best "Kiss me! I'm the chef!" apron, board a plane to the retiree's paradise of Central Florida, and cook myself silly.

To understand fully how the Bakeoff entry came about, though, you'd have to travel back in time about twelve years, to my sophomore year in high school. My best friend and I were living mere houses apart at the time (convenient, since it cut down on uber-dorky rides in my parents' Chevy Caprice). I can't remember which one of us discovered that a show called "Beverly Hills, 90210" was on the air, but we quickly became great fans of that late great Spelling hit. To accompany our weekly television date, we started making snacks to eat while cattily critiquing Tori Spelling's outfits and dreaming of Luke Perry (I know! Ridiculous!).

It turns out that this tradition has continued all of these years, through my time in college 30 minutes away and her time in college an ocean away, through various moves and boyfriends and one marriage (hers) and several roommates (mine). Obviously, we no longer watch "90210," but there's other fabulous TV on ("Frontier House," "The Bachelor," any pageant -- you get the idea).

Sometime last summer, we began experimenting a little with the dips that have always been central to the evening, moving away from the classic seven-layer dip that had predominated before. We tried some spinach dips, and a dip that consisted of layers of cream cheese, vegetarian chili, onions, and cheddar baked in a pie plate. There was a white-bean-and-rosemary dip, several hummuses (hummi?), and one that was equal parts Velveeta and refried beans melted together. That one was NOT a keeper.

Eventually, though, through months of trial and error, we came up with a dip we really, really liked. Not only did we like it, but our significant others, friends, and family liked it too. It was a riff on the baked layered Mexican dip we'd tried before, but with a twist. Almost simultaneously, we discovered that Old El Paso products are part of the Pillsbury family, and that there was a section of the 2001 Bakeoff devoted to quick appetizers with few ingredients. It was a million-dollar match made in heaven.

Well, at least we thought so. As you know if you've read the FAQ section already, we lost out in the competition to the hideous and feared "Meatball Pop" (a Grands! biscuit wrapped around a meatball on a stick, and baked). Ew. There were other finalists, too, all of the super-convenient pre-packaged mix-three-mixes-together-et-voila type. If you want to try "Southwestern Confetti" -- the dip's official fanciful Bakeoff name -- for yourself, the recipe is to the right. You won't be disappointed.

Evidently the Pillsbury kitchen didn't even find our dip worthy of a try, but we still love it. In fact, we'll be eating it tonight in my apartment while we watch the mother of all pageants, "Miss Universe," and ruminate on how exactly the contestants get their hair so high. The doughboy never had it so good.