Writer and Hemingway biographer AE Hotchner was involved in Newman's Own from the beginning. He chatted with The New York Times about his longtime friendship with Paul Newman, and said Newman would drive him crazy, calling him just to talk salad dressing. "Oh, it was murder," Hotchner says. "Just murder. Calling me constantly."

He also told the unlikely story of how the first and most famous Newman's Own product was invented. Like most great things, it started with the two men just hanging out in a barn and drinking beer. It was winter of 1980, and they were mixing up a vat of salad dressing to bottle and give away as Christmas gifts. Hotchner says they were fortunate no one died: when they didn't have anything to stir the vat with, Newman went outside, grabbed a canoe paddle, and started stirring. There was nothing sterile about the environment, which Hotchner has said involved a washtub of ingredients and old wine bottles. "It was ridiculous, but it was fun." They bottled the dressing, went caroling, distributed the bottles, and neighbors were thrilled. They were so thrilled, in fact, that it planted the seeds of Newman's Own.