Merry Christmas to You and Yours, from Me and Mine

A Rare Subversive Plug

You probably suspected as much, but among all of our friends, I’m considered a stylish trendsetter of sorts. A tastemaker par excellence. I was wearing shoes like “TOMS” back in 2000, well before the company's founder could even distinguish between Madonna and Evita Peron. (Nevermind that I referred to them as French peasant shoes or that I think they first belonged to an 80 year old woman before I acquired them secondhand. I consider these pesky, inconsequential details.) And Smart cars? I drove a hybrid one to my senior prom.

So it should come as no surprise that, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting urgent, almost frantic e-mails, phone calls, and unexpected visits from throngs of acquaintances who want to know what they should get their loved ones for Christmas. “What’s the next big thing, Sean?” . . . that’s the common refrain. Well, since I’m a busy man and need to save the hassle of interacting with all you plebes, I’m just going to post the inside info here so you’ll stop harassing me and wasting my time: treasure hunting is where it’s at. You heard me right – metal detectors are the next hot gadget fad. I've recently seen hordes of hipsters roaming the parks and street medians throughout the five boroughs of New York with these things. And you know what that means – next stop: Your Town, USA. To sweeten the deal, word on the street is that Apple is about to come out with its own iMetalDetector, just in time for last-minute Christmas shopping.

But if you can’t afford the touch screen version, you should at least check out a beginner's model at White’s Metal detectors. Their commercials are enlightening, to say the least – never afraid to confront the key metaphysical issues of our time (albeit in a deft and amazingly subtle manner). I could give you more details about their sleek interface and cutting edge functionality, but I couldn’t do them justice. They really just sell themselves – simply listen to the convincing words of some of their owners:

"One of America's fastest growing outdoor activities" . . . http://whiteselectronics.com/content/view/4797/520/

Ohh the stories you'll tell: http://whiteselectronics.com/content/view/4560/515/

Maybe the one I cherish most.-- a frank and insightful discussion with the the President of White's: http://whiteselectronics.com/content/view/4546/481/

And in case you're hungry for more, a full-length infomercial, including interviews with real life treasure hunters!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-nqK2exnC4&feature=related

I know what else you’re wondering: Where does he find such great gift ideas? How is he ALWAYS in THE KNOW? Well, I’m typically not disposed to give away my sources, but as an early, extra-special holiday treat -- a gift from me, the prescient Blogger, to you, my feeble but faithful follower -- I will divulge this one secret: The Family Channel. Get cable, watch it for commercials if nothing else, and the rest will take care of itself. Your heart will sing with inspiration, your mind will buzz with creativity. Ohh Disney Muse! Eisner was genius!

Milk is a key ingredient in Ranch dressing. That's no coincidence.

Please read this fine article that I abridged from Gourmet.com; it's John T. Edge writing about the latest food craze that is sweeping the nation:

"I was 25 when I overdosed on ranch dressing, that kitschy combo of mayonnaise, herbs, and buttermilk or sour cream. I had eaten one too many salads of iceberg and shaved carrots, drenched in a torrent of anemic white nothingness. I had dunked a dirty barnyard of chickens into countless thimbles of blandness. Ranch was too much with me.

A decade and a half passed. I returned to the fold while seated at my father’s kitchen table. Struggling, like many a parent, to get my son to embrace the lettuce-and-cucumbers ideal, I noticed that, when my father cracked open a jar of store-bought ranch, my son dug deep into the roughage. So I followed his lead. Ranch, I learned, hadn’t gotten any better. But it seems that absence makes both the palate and the heart grow fonder.

More recently, I’ve noticed that chefs have been reacquainting themselves with ranch, too. And improving on the formula in the process. I’m not going to play the catalog-the-wild-ranch-iterations game. For that, you can consult this dispatch from Ideas in Food, or this article in Slate. And if, after perusing those pieces, you don’t recognize that ranch has made a comeback, then consider this dinner dispatch from Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle. Even the mighty Thomas Keller has embraced the possibilities: “The waiter presented the entire roasted abalone, which looked like a caramel-colored river rock. He then took it back to the kitchen where chewy/tender slices were arranged on a rectangular plate with a swipe of French Laundry Ranch dressing, a scattering of sea beans and bright orbs of peeled cherry tomatoes.”

On the other coast, my gourmet.com editor Christy Harrison raves about the ranch at “The Farm on Adderley, a place in Brooklyn that does the whole local-seasonal thing.” Closer to my home, John Currence of City Grocery, in Oxford, Mississippi, has been known to run a special of what he calls frog wings, which are, of course, frog legs, fried and doused in the manner of chicken wings, served with a side of buttermilk ranch.

Now that I’ve called it to your attention, I’m betting you’ll notice any number of ranch revivals. A couple weeks back, I sampled what may well be the best. I was at Cakes & Ale, a relatively new restaurant in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Okra, sliced longways, fried to a shattering crispness, [was] served, yes, with a bullet of buttermilk ranch that reminded me, somehow, of a decidedly American riff on Greek tsatsiki dressing. "

Since he is somewhat underwhelmed by Ranch, I can't say that Mr. Edge and I see eye-to-eye on this particular subject. It's no secret that I'm an unashamedly devout Ranch consumer. (And with good reason: some notable New Testament scholars have confirmed that, if the water into wine thing didn't work out for Jesus, he was going to try to turn water into Ranch dressing next.)

But note that Edge updated his verdict on Ranch dressing (only slightly) after eating the store-bought, jarred variety. What's wrong with this man? For purists among us, that's nothing short of a shock and an outrage! You can't judge a dressing by its store-bought simulation! He really needs to exercise better judgment in the future.

Moving on to what all this has to do with my daughter/revolutionary . . . As a father, am I supposed to think that mere chance can explain this phenomenon: milk, the main staple for an infant, is also the main ingredient for Ranch dressing? What one man calls chance, I call fate. So here's what I'm proposing to my wife as soon as she gets back from the gym tonight: as we prepare every bottle of milk for our new daughter, we start by adding a few healthy tablespoons of mayonnaise and a few generous dashes of Ranch seasoning. Voila -- a diet fit for a Titan.

Viewed in that light, mother's milk seems like a paltry source of nutrition for a kid to live on day after day after day. Why not add some minerals and protein and make it Ranch? The kid loses nothing; she only stands to win.

We already had three X chromosomes between us, what will another two in the house hurt?

You've probably heard, but a few weeks ago, we found out that we're expecting a girl. A cute, adorable, baby girl.