ro-tel?

While I wait for today's Godot -- Adobe CS3 -- to attempt (yet again) to reinstall Adobe Acrobat CS3 (of which install, I might add, there are several known problems, especially regarding upgrading) ... well, guess what, kids, you're stuck with me for a little while.

If you want to know how to keep a webmaster from getting anything done, deny her access to her email and her web browser. After a few tumultuous minutes of foaming at the mouth, she will subside into quiet, trailing whimpers while she waits for the pain to stop.

I've been meaning to ask this question for a couple of years, and just have never gotten around to it:

Is Ro-Tel just a Southern thing? Are we the only people who have access to this instant creator of college food cheese dip? Or is this goodness available for all?

While talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago, I suggested that an easy way to contribute food to a gathering would be to do Ro-Tel cheese dip. He had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained: it's one can of Ro-Tel, juice and all, combined with one small block of Velveeta cheese (cubed) and then heated and stirred until the cheese melts and everything suddenly looks like cheese dip.

It's simple, really. I think the can only contains diced tomatoes, diced chiles, and the juice they both came in. Oh, and I'm sure salt and some sort of nitrate and then many chemicals whose name lengths are inversely proportional to how much of the chemical is contained in the finished product, but eassentially it's canned tomatoes and chiles, with a tiny touch of heroin. (For the freshness and flavor, you see.)

Ro-Tel cheese dip is ubiquitous down here. It's the party food that even college-aged males know how to make. It's the food you make when you've only got ten bucks to pacify fifteen friends over the course of a movie. You make the dip, you tell someone to bring chips, and remind everyone to BYOB and you're set.

I have to admit that I don't even know another way to make cheese dip (though Misty does, and hers is awesome). I wonder what people unschooled in the goodness of this stuff manage to make cheese dip with?

Could be worse. You'd better hope I don't have to try installing again. Otherwise I'll have to find something else to write about, and that just won't end well for anyone.

Comments

I started commenting on this post, but the comment got too long so I turned it into a weblog post. You can read it here: Requiem for Ro-tel

It's moments like these that make me SO GLAD you reproduced, John. Future generations won't know what hit them.

But we will know. They'll just think we're laughing to ourselves in the Old Geek Folks Home.

(Well, maybe we ARE.)

Ro-Tel is basically a Southern thing. Whenever I mention Ro-Tel dip to people around here, they look at me like I'm crazy. They're just not familiar with the concept. And even finding it is pretty hard. The regional grocery store chain sometimes carries it, but often it doesn't. Fortunately, there is a Wal-Mart SuperCenter right down the street from me, and they do carry it. Unfortunately, that means that acquiring Ro-Tel entails a trip to Wal-Mart, which I avoid if possible.