Recipe: The Dip

After much egging on by a certain friend of mine, the staff of Hespos.com is proud to share one of our recipes from the Vault of Bachelor Food Recipes.

The Dip is delicious, made from very simple ingredients and so simply prepared that it can be easily made with even the rudimentary kitchen implements that bachelors have lying around the place.

I have taken this dish to the hoity-toitiest of parties and received nothing but praise. How embarrassed the hosts would be if they only knew that The Dip is just a refinement of an old college staple popularized by stoners.

Have a bunch of buddies coming over to watch the game? Or maybe having a Sopranos party and don't know what to serve? Read on for foolproof instructions on how to make The Dip.

First, print this out. Next, go to the store. You need to buy the following:

• 2 - Huge ass bags of taco chips. (I prefer Tostitos.)
• 1 - Can of Mild Salsa. Don't get all manly on me and buy Hot Salsa. You'll thank me later.
• 1 - Big loaf of Velveeta. If you're a metrosexual, you can buy Velveeta Lite, but I don't recommend it.
• 2 - Cans of Black Bean chili.
• 1 - Jar of Jalapeno slices.
• 1 - Bottle of your favorite hot sauce.

Great. Now come home with all this crap and go into the kitchen.

Get a big pot. Use the one you make spaghetti in when your girlfriend won't cook for you. Dump in the can of salsa and both cans of chili. Turn your stovetop burner about halfway up and put the pot on it.

While the salsa and the chili are heating up, cut up the loaf of Velveeta into cubes. You need to do this because if you don't, it won't melt the way it's supposed to and you'll fuck everything up. Get a wooden spoon and start stirring the salsa/chili mixture. Toss in a few cubes of the Velveeta and stir it until the Velveeta is totally melted. Keep going like this, tossing in a few Velveeta cubes at a time until you've melted it all.

Turn down the heat for a bit. Dice up about a dozen of the jalapeno slices. If you don't know how to dice, you're in good company. Order yourself "The Ultimate Chopper" at 4 AM off the DR commercial like I did. If you have The Ultimate Chopper, put the jalapeno slices under it and whack the handle a good 5-6 times. Stir in the diced jalapenos and stir, stir, stir. (If you don't stir, The Dip burns and you end up with a nasty, crusty mass on the bottom of your pot, which you don't want.)

Remove from heat, continuing to stir. As a final gesture, add a few drops of your favorite hot sauce. Mine is "Da Bomb: Beyond Insanity" which clocks in at about 119,700 Scoville units. If you have this stuff lying around, don't add more than a drop or two, because you'll ruin the whole lot. If you did everything right, your incarnation of The Dip will look something like the picture at the top of this post.

Get two big bowls. When The Dip is sufficiently cool, put it into one of these bowls. Fill the other one with taco chips. Serve with cold beer.

Optional: Some people like sour cream and additional jalapeno slices with their nachos. If you must, put out small bowls of sour cream and the rest of the contents of the jalapeno jar (drained, of course).

Enjoy.

New York Needs Robotic Parking Garages

Check out this article in Slate. I think some rich entrepreneur would make serious money over the long haul by bringing a couple of these to New York City. He'll have a customer in me.

Over the years, I've parked in two garages in the city. Both are terrible at doing two simple things: Getting the car out when I need it and keeping the car in nice shape.

Speaking of keeping the car in nice shape, the attendents at the garage I'm currently in (East End Garage Corp) have many strikes against them. They seriously screwed up my 1985 Porsche by banging it into a support pole. (The garage is underground.) When I confronted them about the huge dent in my front fender, they claimed they didn't cause the damage. I had to point out the black paint from my car on their support pole and the white paint from their support pole on my car before they admitted responsibility. On top of that, it took them well over a month to fix the damage to my car. I had it fixed and then gave the car back to my father, who had sold it to me a year prior.

The East End Garage folk are doing no better with my 2002 Corvette. I've noticed scuffs and scratches all over the car. Most recently, they caused two giant scuffs on the front of the car, which look like they've been caused by the ass-end of an SUV backing over the front of the car. I've pointed this out to the garage manager, who seems to want to keep his distance from me lately.

Bring on the robots.

Slate: The FCC and Satellite Radio

This is an interesting article on Slate about local content rules as they pertain to satellite radio. I find this National Association of Broadcasters description of satellite radio's model interesting...

[T]he National Association of Broadcasters charged that the new service threatened "traditional American values of community cohesion and local identity."

How interesting. If this is how they describe satellite radio, then how does the NAB describe consolidation of stations under conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcast?

Movin' On Up

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