Homemade Creamy Country French Dressing

French dressing has been popular in the U.S. as long as I can remember, but it really seems to have been an American creation; at least the orange, or reddish orange type. This is my own version, and I think you'll like it. "Oui, oui!" 

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup mayonnaise (reduced calorie is fine)
1/2 cup sour cream ("light" is fine)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup canola, vegetable or other generally neutral oil; that is, not highly flavored
3 tablespoons brown mustard
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper (white or black*)

In a large bowl mix the mayonnaise and sour cream together. In another bowl, or in a blender, mix the sugar and white wine vinegar, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the oil, brown mustard, ketchup, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, salt and white or black pepper. Mix very well, or better yet, blend it. Add the mayo/sour cream mixture and blend or stir very well again. Chill the dressing before serving.

* I use white pepper, but you can go ahead and use black pepper, see if I care! Just wait until I put a curse on you and you can't sleep until you change your recipe to use white pepper. 

WORD HISTORY:
Cup-This word, related to "cooper" ("a barrel maker"), goes back to Indo European "keup/kaup," which meant "a hollow (object)." This gave its Latin offspring "cupa," meaning "basin, tub, barrel," which then spawned Latin "cuppa" (cup). This was borrowed into Old Germanic, or directly into Old English, as "cuppe," also meaning "cup,"  and it was several centuries before it took on the spelling used today, "cup." Forms are present in many of the other Germanic languages: German has "Kopf," meaning "head," ^ Low German Saxon "Kopp" and "Köppken" (cup),^^ Dutch, West Frisian, East Frisian and Danish "kop" (cup), Swedish and Norwegian "kopp" (cup). I did not find a form in modern Icelandic, but "apparently" it once had "koppr," a form "apparently" borrowed from Low German.  

^ While rare, it can also mean "bowl." In many German dialects, including in Berlin, it is "Kopp." Further, the same source also gave German "Kuppe," meaning "knoll;" that is, "small rounded hill;" so interestingly, "an inverted cup shape," but the word "cupola," generally meaning "the dome of a building," is also from the idea of "an inverted cup."

^^ There is no standard form of Low German, only a number of related dialects, which are not always mutually intelligible.