Columnist Scott Dickensheets: New dip gets a chili reception

BEFORE I RECOUNT the details of the Mildly Alarming Chili Cheese Dip Incident on the opening day of football season, let me assure you that I'm only doing it by popular demand. Some readers have displayed a level of interest in my newfound vegetarianism for which avid isn't quite the right description, but worth blowing a column on is.

"My mom really enjoyed meeting you," writes a colleague whose mother I encountered at lunch recently. "... She really wanted to know how the vegetarian thing is going." A reader named Carol seconds that emotion. "Do you feel better?" she e-mails. "How do your children and wife like it? Are your friends making fun of you?"

Good questions all. Yes, my friends persist in their mockery, rudely questioning my sanity, honesty and sexual orientation. Well, call your lawyers, boys, I'm gonna sue you big time, veggie-bashing being a clear hate crime in my book.

Yes, my wife loves the vegetarian life, as well she should -- it was her idea. The children have grown more, shall we say, ambiguous. As a pressure release, we allow them meat now and then.

As for how I feel, well, that's when we get to the Mildly Alarming Chili Cheese Dip Incident.

Let me preface this by saying I've been a good boy so far. Vegetarian chili? Check. Garden burgers instead of hamburgers? Check. Lots of lettuce, lots of (sigh) sprouts? Check and double check! So, when a friend invited us over to celebrate the first Sunday morning of football, I was prepared for whatever meaty munchies his spouse -- a very thorough hostess -- would provide.

I hadn't counted on the chili cheese dip.

You know the stuff -- melted cheese and canned chili. A cholesterol extravaganza, each goopy chipful guaranteed to clog an entire artery. Needless to say, I love it beyond all reason.

So when our hostess set a bowl of the luscious, meat-studded mix before us, a joyous shout of "Tackle the dirty son of a --" died on my lips. This was the stiffest test of my new regimen so far.

The dip triggered within me a struggle between appetite and ideals. I'm unused to this, appetite having had free reign for so long. At stake: my heart, soul and colonic integrity. It quickly became an issue of willpower, or, more precisely, will-not power: You will not eat that, I told myself sternly. That was stupid -- I never listen to myself. My hand, wielding a chip, reached for the bowl. At which point this quickly became ...

A question of semantics: "That's not actually meat," I declared, displaying the brown specks on the dunked chip. "Those are spices." At which point this quickly became ...

A matter of that look on my wife's face. If you're married, you know the look I mean. The look that says Yeah, right better than the words Yeah, right. The look that says, Those ain't spices, babe. It wasn't an accusing look; she wasn't going to call me on a few bites of illicit dip. But she didn't want me BSing myself about it.

Appetite and ideals reached a truce that morning, as I carefully daubed a few chips in the congealing edges of the mix. No meat, no specks. While I probably denied myself a needed pressure release -- being too good for my own bad, as it were -- it was nice to stick to my guns. Or my sprouts, or whatever. So, to answer your question, Carol, yeah, I'm feeling better.

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