The crack of salad dressings: Not coming to a store near you (or me either)

Last post, I shared an e-mail I received from Scripto about their now discontinued Giga pens. This post, I share an e-mail about another of my favorite products, Ken’s Chipotle Ranch Salad Dressing, which is “the crack of salad dressings,” according to my wife and I concur and is the icing on the cake, so to speak, with the Southwestern chicken salad that I get every Wednesday at Weis.

What follows are transcripts of e-mails between my wife and a Ken’s Foods customer line employee:

suggestions@kensfoods.com
Subject: Please….retail chipotle ranch

Just wanted to ask if you have considered selling chipotle ranch in the bottle. We love it. Our local supermarket sells a Southwestern chicken salad made so glorious by your dressing that my husband wrote about it: http://unfinishedrambling.wordpress.com/

We had a minor crisis when it was temporarily unavailable but he was pleased to report yesterday that it’s back! I’d love to be able to buy it to dip carrots in.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Please….retail chipotle ranch

I am sorry to inform you that this item is actually a Foodservice item only and it is only sold To Restaurants and Catering Businesses, because it has a very short shelf life. It is unavailable to the General public. If you have any further questions on this matter please contact me at Any time. Thank you.

[Name deleted]
Ken’s Foods
Consumer line

First of all, I have to say thanks to my wife for:

1. Sending the e-mail on my behalf so I don’t look like a total loon after already e-mailing Scripto. I mean, I might be coming off sounding like half a loon, which might sound like this, but at least I won’t be sounding like a full loon, which looks like this:
   
2. Plugging my blog, which needs all the exposure it can get in showing the world the need for the return of the Scripto Giga pen and Ken’s Chipotle Ranch in the refrigerated section of your local grocery store.

Second, and the last point on my wife’s e-mail, I think dipping carrots in the dressing is just wrong. Personally, if I could, I’d drink it straight from the big gallon bottles in which it comes, or if I could, have it injected straight into my veins. Or through vapors like crack. But never, ever with carrots.

As for the response itself, first, if I was to write my own response, I would refer him/her back to my response to the Scripto sales admin. asst. who answered my request to restart production on the Scripto Giga pen — a response in which I castigated her/him for bad use of grammar in the initial e-mail to me. Here, I think the consumer line person used too many capital letters, starting with Foodservice and then continuing for the next three sentences. If he/she meant it was unavailable to General Public, a la

why didn’t he/she just capitalize Public too? And was the capitalization of Any time meant to be like “Yeah, right, contact me Whenever.” Well, he/she didn’t have to be snotty, you know?

And if he/she truly meant “Any time,” I would like the numbers for his/her:

1. home phone
2. personal cell phone
3. personal address
4. Social Security card (okay, I know this one might have been a stretch, but I thought why not go for broke and see if I can steal someone’s identity while I’m at it? How else I am going to pay for my Ken’s Chipotle Ranch habit?)

Second, on the content itself, I would refer him/her back to my aforementioned comment to refrigerate the crack of salad dressings. I believe Ken’s profit margins would go through the roof.

And then I would sign it

Sincerely yours,
Cuckoo for Ken’s Chipotle Ranch

It would have been “Loon for Ken’s”, but the alliteration wasn’t there. Sorry.

The salad guy, the crazy pen guy: That’s me

First, right off the top. These are my favorite pens EVER. I admit it. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, ScriptoUSA doesn’t even make these anymore — even though on their website, they still have a link for them with this glowing description (which by the way with which I wholeheartedly agree, I couldn’t have said it better myself):

The most unique ballpoint pen available. The Giga Pen has a 1.6mm ball size for extra smooth writeability and broad, bold strokes. A contemporary transparent barrel design and finished with a rubber comfort grip this pen is ideal for those who want their words to be noticed. Available in black, blue and red ink. Available in Twin Pack.

Available, uh huh, right. I can’t find these God’s gifts to writers everywhere anywhere. Believe me, I’ve scoured almost every store in Pennsylvania, I kid you not, and I can’t find them. I was even amazed that I could find a photo of them online, but I did at some online store that, of course, doesn’t have them in stock anymore.

Which brings me to the subject of my post: I’m a geek, a totally certifiable Geek, capital G, which by the way is the same letter my favorite pens begins with.

For months on end, I’d go into the local Dollar General to see if they got any Gigas back in stock. It was the only place I could find it. At one point, I think I talked with the manager there about 20 minutes about how much I loved these pens. She explained that she thought they weren’t making anymore, but that sometimes they came in — leftover stock, I guess. She told me to keep stopping by, which I did, and each time, I think I had to tell her the story of how much I loved those pens. I’m sure every time she sees me, she thinks, “Oh, no, here comes that crazy pen guy again.”

I don’t know her name, but when I see her — like yesterday when I couldn’t find a generic Zyrtec that another Dollar General about 75 miles away carries — it’s like we’re picking up from a conversation we had before. Oh, and she says that “It’s the planograms. We’re not a traditional setup like the one in Dushore. Instead, we’re a Plan A or a Plan B.” Oh, I get it, the planograms. I should have known that’s possibly why they don’t have the generic Zyrtec yet.

But it’s not just pens with which I’m obsessed. No, I’m also in love with southwestern chicken salads made at Weis Market but without onions. I have one specially made for me every Wednesday, when all the salads are on sale. And like those beautiful pens, I can talk about these beautiful salads with the deli manager for minutes on end — and yes, I have.

In fact, last week, I love those salads so much, actually it’s the dressing, a spicy creamy vinaigrette, that when last Tuesday, just on a whim, I got one — even with onions, I noticed that the dressing didn’t taste the same. Uh oh. Crisis (said in high voice like Ross the Intern on The Tonight Show, even though I am no way like Ross, meaning, of course, I’m not as funny and articulate as he is). Of course, I thought about it all day Tuesday and when I was there later that night, just about closing time, and I saw an employee at the deli, I, of course, had to say something to him.

Funny thing is I said I order it every Wednesday and he know right away who I was. In fact, I joke with the employees I see regularly every Wednesday that they probably know me as “the salad guy.” In fact, I think he said something to that effect: “Oh, you’re the salad guy.” Or maybe I imagined it.

But I must have talked to him for about 10 minutes about the change in dressing, letting him know that I wasn’t complaining. But was curious why they were changing the ingredients. He said he wasn’t sure, but he’d let the deli manager know about my concern.

The next day, I arrive for my salad around 12:30, 1 as usual and see the same guy there who directs me to the deli manager. And we talk for about 20 minutes. She apologizes that the dressing they normally get is out of stock, so they’ve been having to use Hidden Valley brand instead. She said it’s been out of stock for about five weeks every time they order it. She agrees with me that it’s the dressing that makes the salad so good. And another employee chimes in that she doesn’t like the new dressing either, but they have to have something, she says and rolls her eyes like she’s also saying, “Whaddya gonna do?”

Well, I almost tell her, what I’m gonna do is go somewhere else and stop buying your southwestern chicken salads, if you don’t get the dressing in and I’ll tell all my friends in town (yeah, like I have friends) that they need to stop frequenting Weis because they don’t have that salad. Yeah, I have that much power in my hometown — okay, in my head.

But I don’t, because I love those salads too much and I’ll hold out for a little while with the lesser dressing, in the hope that they get the better dressing back soon.

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Disclaimer: I have stock in neither ScriptoUSA or any of its affiliates or in Weis Markets or any of its subsidiaries.

However, I do have stock in Humor-Blogs.com. So click there and make my stock in being an uber-geek go up. Thanks for your support.

Addendum: 5/21/08: That spicy creamy vinaigrette dressing isn’t spicy creamy vinaigrette dressing. Nope, it’s Ken’s Chipotle Ranch, which strange enough isn’t sold retail. To complain about that, but thank Ken there nicely too “for the crack of salad dressings” as my missus calls it, because hell WE DON’T WANT THEM TO STOP MAKING IT! PLEASE KEEP MAKING IT, KEN! I NEED MY WEEKLY FIX, contact Ken at suggestions@kensfood.com.