It started off innocently enough, a little dressing drenched leaf of lettuce making its way onto a slice on a shared plate. Then hey, why not dip the crust in it?. Before you know it ranch dressing topped pies started elbowing their way into specialty slice shops. But now ranch has gained such a strong foothold in the topping department that it's made its way onto the chain menus*, usually serving as an accompaniment to chicken. It has taken whole areas of the country by storm (I'm looking at you Texas ... and Michigan). So, Slice people, what's your position on ranch dressing edging its way into the topping/saucing class? More

Houston food writer Robb Walsh posted a thoughtful meditation a couple weeks ago on ranch dressing and its application in pizza-related situations. This was in reaction to a Houston pizzeria, Romano's, that banned the stuff outright from its premises (see photo, above). As anyone not on the East Coast knows, people have been dipping their pizza in the stuff for some time now. After taking us through the dressing's origins and making a spirited defense of it, Walsh decides to take the dip: Personally, I have come to prefer ranch dressing over ketchup as a dip for onion rings.... More