A Bottle of Red, A Half Gallon of White

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast.

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12 Responses

  1. Burt Likko says:

    I enjoyed all 1,800+ words of this essay written in praise of two of the blander things in our culture: a Billy Joel song and ranch dressing. You may be on to something with this writing thing, Mr. Donaldson.Report

  2. Blomster says:

    South African here. Have never. in. my .life seen this stuff on a pizza. I asked my husband just now if he knew what ‘ranch dressing’ is – he ventured ‘dressing like a cowboy’?Report

  3. I love Cool Ranch Doritos, but one of the casualties is that they’ve edged out the Sour Cream and Onion Doritos. Occasionally, Doritos will release a throwback line for a few months, and I suppose it’s possible some markets still sell them, but I can’t find them, even online.

    There are also very few “sour cream” flavored corn chips in general. (I’ll put a plug in for Paqui chips, which have a sour cream and green salsa flavor, which is the closest I’ve found in recent years.)Report

  4. Road Scholar says:

    Don’t have much to say either way about Ranch dressing, but I saw Billy Joel on his 52nd Street tour in ’78 or ’79. Kick-ass concert.Report

    • I don’t know anything about the concert(s), being too young to have gone. But I love that album.

      ETA: I usually *don’t* like albums qua albums. I’m more of a “I liked that (usually popular) song on the radio so I like the performer” guy. However, 52nd street is one of the exceptions. I have fond memories of sitting in my sister’s old room after she left and listening to her 8-track version of it over and over again.Report

  5. Burt Likko says:

    The dorm I lived in my freshman year in college was going to be completely made over the next year, so the college said “If you want to paint something on the outside of your dorm room door, go for it.” So some people did Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd album covers and others did political stuff and others did the utterly predictable big marijuana leaves.

    But the very best one, which attracted people from across the campus — literally it became a tourist attraction — was a faithful adaptation of a Cool Ranch Doritos bag, with the dorm room door right in the middle where the transparent plastic revealing the chips inside would have been. Hands down. There wasn’t any argument and no one bothered to paint their exterior room walls after that one because it wasn’t going to be bested. You’d walk past this one on your way back to your room, drunk, stoned, or both, and just get the munchies.Report