I love the opportunity to snack. A charcuterie board? A chip and dip situation? A cocktail meatball on a toothpick? Sign me up. I love to munch and crunch— it is my birthright. My friend’s husband made jalapeño poppers wrapped in bacon and brushed with hoisin sauce the year the Eagles won the Super Bowl and I dreamily crave them at all times. The Super Bowl gives everyone the excuse to eat between 4-6 ounces of cream cheese more or less right from the bowl. And why shouldn’t we? “Snack” is such a cute sounding word that originates from 14th century Dutch which based the word on the sound of snapping teeth. Now, everyone, gnash your teeth, but in a fun, convivial way.
A real party food to me is a 7-Layer Dip. The one in my memory palace is made by my childhood friend’s mom who sometimes made it for us when we watched movies in the dark on rainy summer days and always for grownup parties where the parents would listen to Fleetwood Mac too loud and drink weapons-grade rum cocktails mixed by my dad. This dip is so perfectly canonized in my memory that I would insist upon the fakest ingredients food science could devise because that’s the only thing mom’s used in the 90s. You can taste the “taco seasoning” on the indestructible, unclumpable pre-shredded cheese, can’t you? Born of a ladies’ magazine in the early eighties (it’s not really clear which one since it looks like they all took credit for it), it’s cool, crunchy, and creamy vehicle for limitless dipping with, ideally, a tortilla chip. Even the pre-made supermarket ones are pretty great in case you’re a busy mom on the go.
If I were to improve upon perfection (and laugh in the face of the almighty and so on and so forth), I think I could really get down with combining my favorite snacks, plus or minus one layer of spinach and artichoke dip. My fantasy seven layer dip is as follows: Buffalo chicken dip, refried beans, jalapeño poppers as made by my friend’s husband, tater tots, cheese, pineapple pico de gallo, top layer of french onion soup (bread, caramelized onions, brûléed cheese). Chicken and bacon can be replaced by beans or vegetables to make this vegetarian and Kosher. Assemble at your own peril.
This Week’s Vocabulary List
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Vicissitude: (noun) the state of being changeable, natural change in human affairs beyond one’s control
Told in vignettes tied to two main figures, Sasha, an overaged personal assistant with a stealing problem and her record executive boss, Bennie, this book moves through relationships, time and space. In one vignette, Bennie’s wife, Stephanie is keeping a secret about playing tennis with a suspected Republican against Bennie’s wishes. When one of her minor deceptions snowballs into a larger dishonesty which eventually lays bare a betrayal.
The shifts in her day yield a great deal of uncertainty and discomfort and she seeks the person she’s most trying to deceive.
I am over a decade late to A Visit from the Goon Squad which came out in the summer reading space of 2011. I think everyone in my internet milieu was reading it and I couldn’t stand to participate in wide scale group reading which now numbers highly amongst my favorite things. Things change!
I am really enjoying myself while I wait in a totally normal way for the next ACOTAR book from the library.
According to wikipedia, Jennifer Egan lives in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood with her family, which is where my brilliant sister lived while attending NYU. It’s wild to think that while I was an aimless grad student and she was writing this book, I could have passed her on the G-train or sat back to back with her at brunch. The proximity to greatness!
My second favorite NYU degree holder.
Practical Applications
I tried out a new pop culture podcast and the most recent episode was about The Dismemberment Plan, a late 90s noisy, uneven, post-punk band that I have the softest of spots for in my heart. I discovered them on the radio in middle school and rediscovered them in a breakup after attending a reunion show in a former roller rink with my newly ex boyfriend in our only attempt to be friends. I like how much the music fills my brain all the way up so nothing can break through. Some people like movie scores, I like 45 minutes of 1998’s Emergency & I for concentrating or circumnavigating the moon on a treadmill. One of the panelists said that the band in general made them wish they couldn’t hear and I genuinely barked with laughter. Why does someone not liking The Dismemberment Plan not bother me, but someone not liking Taylor Swift sometimes makes me feel like flipping a car?
I simply refuse to participate in the vicissitudes of public opinion about my emotional support popstar. It’s just too mean and I generally believe that society is on a razor’s edge of tolerance for their one woman at a time so it’s easy to tear one down and replace her with the next one rather than saying thank you for her contributions. I reported to my mom something horrible I had read in Tweet form and she responded perfectly, “They’re not even famous; why do you even care?” She’s right! Saying something is bad doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it does make me question your critical thinking faculties. Is something bad or do you not like it? If you can’t tell the difference, your thinking cap is busted, my friend! I want to defend my tastes or at least soften the edges of someone disagreeing with me but it’s about as purposeful as being dropped from an airplane in the middle of the ocean with a crazy straw and an umbrella. I don’t need everyone to like the same things but I do need a little more “the light in me honors the light in you” from the algorithm and the users who occupy its space.
Love,
Andrea
Thank you for stopping by Vocabulary School!
If you are enjoying Vocabulary School, please subscribe and send me a good vibe as my 76ers crush, Pat Beverley, got traded to the Bucks yesterday. I will maintain my crush but the time difference will make it tough. I may have seen the last Sixer with whom I could have gone to college pass through the team, so the dogged persistence of time will be showing me that being born in the 1980s comes for us all.
The tater tot layer of your dip of dreams is inspired. Reach for the stars, baby.