20 fast food and Netflix pairings for the classiest binge weekend of your life

The Ranch – Dairy Queen

The premise of The Ranch is that hotshot quasi-pro football player Colt (Ashton Kutcher) returns home to his family’s Colorado ranch after he finds out that the business is in dire straits. In the process, he reconnects with his brother Rooster (Danny Masterson) and his father Beau (Sam Elliott) and the truly important things in life. In a pop culture landscape dedicated to aspirational living and chasing inconsequential trends, the series stands out as an ode to blue-collar life. Consequently, the binge viewings of the series should be paired with food from a fast food restaurant that is a cultural touchstone for generations of working-class folk, Dairy Queen.

Obviously, any order from Dairy Queen would be incomplete without something from the restaurant’s frozen treats menu. While its chocolate-dipped soft serve ice cream cones are tasty, its impossibly thick and creamy Blizzards are the real attraction. You can fill out the rest of your order will old-school favorites like fried cheese curds, Kansas City barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, baskets of chicken strips and the chili dogs. Its offerings are simple, unpretentious and satisfying in a way that can’t be matched by more contemporary leaning fast food cuisine.

It’s that straightforward and uncomplicated quality that makes food from Dairy Queen ideally-suited for consumption when watching The Ranch. It just wouldn’t feel right to binge episodes of the show with more ostentatious food. Watching regular folk struggle to make ends meet while eating a preposterously expensive cheeseburger with the brioche bun and bleu cheese topping would just feel wrong.