After a night enjoying the pleasures of Amsterdam's cafes, my sister and I began trekking home through a soft drizzle. Of course it would be far more accurate to say we were stumbling back to her flat entirely intoxicated, feebly attempting to shield ourselves from the downpour with a stolen umbrella of unknown origin. Less poetic, but far more true. There we were, at a time somewhere between three and five in the morning, wandering the streets of Amsterdam like too incredibly hot messes. Two - as it just so happens - hungry hot messes.
Passing closed bakeries and snack bars, our hunger drug us on a wild goose chase despite being cold, wet and tired. Nothing can separate a drunken person from food. Nothing.
Then finally we saw the light of an open store reflecting off the wet cobblestones in front of us. We hurried in from the rain to find ourselves in a New York Pizza. Yes, there in Amsterdam two drunk American girls ended up in a New York Pizza. Go figure.
But we didn't care. We were hungry and promptly ordered two huge slices of what I can only imagine was - by sober standards - the worst pizza ever. We eagerly handed over our money and reached for the plates in front of us when the man at the register casually mentioned that we should try their special sauce. Soon we learned that this sauce was so special that it couldn't be found anywhere except for this very franchise of New York Pizza. It sounded utterly magical and I was intrigued. How could I not say yes to a sauce so unique? I had to have the sauce.Thrusting my plate forward enthusiastically, the man grabbed a large, nondescript, red squeeze bottle from behind the counter. I watched his hand grip the bottle and anticipated the amazing substance. First a drip, then a pool settled next to my pizza. It looked totally amazing.
Finally, finding a table in the back, my sister and I dug into our pizza and cautiously dipped our slices into the special, one-of-a-kind sauce. It only took one taste. We looked at each other and both said the exact same thing:
"RANCH DRESSING"
I traveled half way around the world to try ranch dressing. And yes, I ate it all.
It's amazing how, when we fly a plane over to somewhere else, it kind of places that place on a pedestal. Only to realize things can be amazingly dumbassed anywhere.
ReplyDeleteObligatory blog post: http://cookiesandlandmines.blogspot.com/
Special Sauce! That's funny it ended up being ranch dressing. Great story!
ReplyDeleteHeh. But it's *Dutch* ranch dressing. That makes it special. Happy upcoming birthday, btw!
ReplyDeletethat story was hilarious...
ReplyDelete...but this comment is actually about a story on the radio this morning I thought you may like...
...they were discussing a special Hooters is having for married men to get a certain % off their bill depending on how many years they have been marriage. A huge debate broke out about whether or not married men should be in Hooters without their wives and if Hooters is trying to promote men coming in without their SOs especially so they can gawk at the girls.
I tried really hard to get through because I wanted to talk about your blog and what a different impression of the franchise you can get from reading it. There were a lot of women calling in to say how ridiculous people who think its just about boobs and sex are completely wrong but still a lot that didn't see it that way.
Anyway, I wanted to share this with you since you were the first person I thought of when I heard them discuss Hooters.
That's so funny! When I was living in Northern Ireland, my mom sent over a few boxes of Kraft Easy Mac and a bottle of ranch dressing, since salad dressings were few and far between. You would have thought it was crack. I let the cook at our school try some, and her eyes got all wide and she practically shouted, "oh MY that's GORGEOUS!" The other students all wanted our parents to send us four things: ranch dressing, Mountain Dew, JIF peanut butter, and Lucky Charms cereal. Go figure.
ReplyDelete