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This is a timely topic for me. But then, food memories always are.

I had a yen a few weeks ago to make a certain dip that made its way into my thought processes from the deepest recesses of my childhood memories. It was just cream cheese, Worcestershire, minced onion and Brockles Dressing - just eaten with Fritos. It was also the basis for the world's best shrimp dip, when they were added to it.

Only problem - when I went to the store for Brockles Dressing, I couldn't find any. I hadn't actually looked for it in quite a while - I know now it must have been 9 years or so.

The Brockles family had several restaurants in the Dallas area in the 1940s-50s and perhaps later. We didn't live in Dallas, but visited there often enough that we had eaten at Brockles' a few times.

They had the *best* tangy salad dressing, which was served on a wedge of iceberg lettuce. For the kiddos, which I was at the time, there would be a small bowl of the dressing brought to the table for us to dip crackers in while waiting the interminable length of time before the family got served.

Many former Dallas young'uns recall the taste of "Euphrates wafers" with Brockles dressing!

And now I know this because I thought a simple google search would put me in touch with some Brockles, somewhere. What I found was a messageboard at the Dallas Historical Society with loads of questions from people trying to find the jars of Brockles dressing that we had always been able to get at grocery stores in TX.

Someone said it had been discontinued in 1997 or so. Someone else said they found a "copycat' recipe for it and another person said the Wichita Falls newspaper had run the authentic original recipe long ago, so they posted it.

People there debated the recipe because it had some very strange ingredients. Some people made it and said it wasn't right. Others tried the copycat and said it wasn't quite right, either. I made both and they weren't right, for sure. Although, after about a week in the fridge, and tasting it every day, the "weird" one got better and was very close.

A Brockles family member posted and said nobody had it right and to hang on, there would be news soon of a reopening of a Brockles' restaurant in the Dallas area and the dressing would be in groceries again. That was late last year, I think. Didn't happen.

So I just went on lusting after Brockles in my heart only. Then, one day about 2 weeks ago, I grabbed a jar of "BestMaid Sandwich Spread" at another grocery I don't get to very often.

It was the same size jar and the "spread" looked suspiciously like Brockles in color and texture. The ingredients list confirmed it was a similar product. When I saw that it was made in Ft Worth, I bought it.

Funny, I had commented to a friend that week - who said she shared a similar memory from a restaurant in Chicago in that time period and the same wedge of iceberg! Another friend said it sounded like the salad dressing at Christie's, an oldtime shrimp place here in Houston.

I said then, what if it was just a restaurant supply house's dressing and we're all talking about the same thing, lol.

Guess what. The BestMaid "spread" I found is *the one* and I have a pantry full of jars of Brockles dressing to last me a few months! Bingo!