If you asked me to name the best thing I’ve ever eaten, I would have to go through a long list of contenders. There’s the veggie burger I had on the isle of Iona in Scotland–topped with a saffron aioli and edible flowers from the restaurant’s garden–or perhaps the pasta with pickled garlic scapes from Kissa Tanto in Vancouver, or misir wot and injera from my favorite Ethiopian restaurant. Or what about the white African sweet potato tart from the long-gone patisserie in my old neighborhood, or the pizza with mango sauce I had on my birthday in San Juan 10 years ago, or the saganaki and pomegranate Coke from the Mediterranean place my partner took me to on our second date? Or the brown butter almond brittle ice cream from Jeni’s, or huevos rancheros pretty much any time I eat it? These are all absolutely delicious. But more than that, more than just the flavors, these represent distinct memories–of places, people, periods in my life. It’s impossible to separate the taste from the mood. Food–like scent, or music–can do that, can encapsulate a whole vibe.
But could I eat pasta with pickled garlic scapes every day of my life? I could not. Are edible flowers my favorite food of all time? No. If you asked me to name my very favorite food, the dish I could never get sick of, the thing I could start an entire blog about, it would not be any of the above (vaguely food-snobbish) meals. It would be macaroni and cheese.
It’s a comforting classic. A reliable 12-minute meal. When you see it on a restaurant menu, you can pretty much trust that it will be at least acceptable–one of the safest bets on the menu at a dubious-seeming place. (Hot tip: if a sit-down restaurant has napkin dispensers on the tables, don’t order chicken or fish. Order a grilled cheese or the mac.) When I see it on a restaurant menu, the odds are good that this is what I will order. There are a great many types of mac & cheese: creamy and tender from the stovetop, baked to perfection in the oven under a bubbling layer of golden breadcrumbs, mass-produced from a mix or a meal kit, added to a gimmicky sandwich or pizza, fancied-up with lobster or truffle oil, deep-fried into a greasy appetizer. It’s almost universally delicious. It’s at least a bi-weekly staple in my house. I’m a grown woman, and I love mac & cheese.
The first mac & cheese I recall eating in my life was, naturally, Kraft, from the blue box. We’d have it often when I was growing up, often with tuna and peas mixed in. When it was time to stir in the neon powdered cheese, my mom or my dad would put the pot directly on the floor for me so I could mix it up with a wooden spoon. (Our kitchen was carpeted, which is honestly weird now that I think about it, and I am not sure if they cautioned me about it being hot to the touch–given how frequently I burn myself now when doing things like taking bagels out of the air fryer, probably not.) Like a lot of neurodivergent people, as a kid I had a rep as a picky eater, and Kraft mac & cheese was one of the family go-tos.
It’s arguable, of course, that this delicacy is actually mac & cheese, though. (I’m not ragging on it–I have two boxes in my pantry right now. It’s fast, easy, cheap, and great.) What do we know about this product? It certainly contains both mac and some sort of cheese-related substance. Specifically, the ingredients list reads as follows:
- Enriched macaroni
- wheat flour
- durum flour
- Niacin
- ferrous sulfate [iron, thiamin mononitrate, vitamin b1]
- riboflavin [vitamin b2]
- folic acid
- Cheese sauce mix
- Whey
- Milkfat
- milk protein concentrate
- Salt
- sodium triphosphate
- contains less than 2% of citric acid, lactic acid, sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, with paprika, turmeric, and annatto added for color, enzymes, cheese culture
I guess it’s sort of comforting that the neon orange color comes from turmeric, paprika, and annatto, rather than melted plastic or something. It says mac & cheese on the box, at least in the U.S. But like the Canadian version, “Kraft Dinner,” “Kraft Mac & Cheese” is more like the title of the product–like Fruity Pebbles, which contain neither fruit nor pebbles, luckily (hopefully?)–rather than a description of the contents. Then again, what constitutes mac & cheese? Is this a practical question, or a philosophical one? Is Kraft Mac & Cheese less real than a box of Velveeta Shells & Cheese, of neon squeezable cheese fame, and is that somehow less real than a mac made with cubed Velveeta, or shredded American, or what about a mac & cheese that doesn’t even contain dairy? What about Easy Mac (or its generic counterpart, Swift Mac)? What about the kind from a can? What does real even mean? Are we living in a simulation? Does this website actually exist, and what the hell even is it, anyway?
Well, my fortieth birthday is this week, and I inquired of my soul what gift I wanted to give myself in honor of surviving 4 decades on the planet, and the answer that came from the void was: I want to start a blog about mac & cheese. Whatever that means. So here we are. You can expect some recipes, restaurant reviews, product commentary, personal anecdotes, culinary history, life hacks, hard-hitting journalism (?), cheese memes (cheemes? Sorry) etc. The title of this site combines my love of mac & cheese with my love of puns/portmanteaus. The whole idea is self-indulgent and a bit frivolous, not unlike mac & cheese itself, but this is the gift that I wanted, so happy birthday to me.
Cheesily yours,
Kristen