Mac is where its at

Mac and cheese is such a basic dish. Who doesn’t have that blue Kraft box on a shelf in their kitchen? – I don’t want to hear from the Crazy Food People contingent. I don’t want to hear how cheese is made from milk which is cruel to the animals, or how bleached flower is bad for you, or how Kraft is an evil corporation bent on controlling our minds. Lighten up!! – Anyway back to macaroni and cheese, it’s basic, it comfort, and there are a million versions of it out there.

Today I went to a birthday lunch for a co-worker to a local Italian eatery. I ordered, you guessed it, the mac and cheese. It was really, really good. I got to talking to the birthday girl (Happy Birthday Debbie!!) about how it was the third best I’d had at local restaurants. At the Montague it’s the start of the menu with about 5 or 6 different mac and cheese dishes, all good! The atmosphere is a kind of demented Cajun (is that redundant?) thing where the chef is know to hide insults and snarky comments in the dish. It really gets hopping late at night and is known as an after hours kind of place, just about the time you’d be looking of some good mac and cheese.

The best place for this common dish is a place where their version is anything but common. For on thing it’s a side dish you order separately and it comes in a very small portion that you will have a hard time finishing. Castagna’s dish is made with fontina cheese and is so rich you can hardly stand it. I had it years ago and still taste it!!

I myself make a pretty mean dish of the stuff using Velvetta, but it’s pretty far from what these folks are making. My version is meant to be baked in a very large dish and carried to a family get together where it will be scarfed down at record speeds along with all the other offerings. Mine is the backbone of middle-class America. It’s great with laughs, for listening to Aunt Violet and Mom bicker good naturedly, for watching the big game, or for watching a two year old try to keep it on a fork. My version is completely and totally G-rated, and still a step above Kraft, but perhaps a little below trendy.

Family and friends

Today I attended a funeral for my friend Wendy’s mother. I never had a chance to meet her, so I have only known her through Wendy’s stories. In fact this was the first time I had the chance to meet the rest of her family. I was introduced to her two sisters, her father, numerous aunts and uncle and other family members. Now I am terrible with names, great with faces and voices, but really, really rotten with names. I remember things about people. So, basically I could meet you and remember that you grew up in Redding California, have 2 brothers and 1 sister, that you’re the middle child, studied geography in college, drive a blue Honda Civic, and love Jazz, but I will not remember your name. I can’t explain it, and it is certainly a handicap in my profession working in community outreach. What can I say?

So during the service my friend Debbi leans over and points to one the sisters and asks if I can remember her name. I had to admit that in my mind the two sisters have been condensed to “The Wine Drinker” and “The Teeth”. This response caused a very inappropriate laugh from Debbi, and she had to lean over to her mother, on the other side of her, and explain why she laughed in the middle of a funeral service.

Years ago the four of us, all best friends, my sister Danna, Debbi her next door neighbor, Wendy and me, (Debbi’s mom refers to us as the Cat Club) were out for a girls night. Danna and I got to telling stories about growing up in a family with a car curse. We basically prayed that the car would start, prayed all the way to where we were going, prayed it would start again, prayed all the way home and then said a prayer of thanks when we got home. Those bumper stickers that say “God is my co-pilot”, I know you’re seen them. Well, growing up in our family God logged a lot of flight time. We made a joke about being from a white trash family.

Wendy said she could out do us all in that area. She told us about her sister who had a drug problem (now clean), had gotten into all kinds of trouble, lived in a beat-up trailer park, and had lost all her teeth young. For Christmas one year her parents paid for a set of false teeth, and they went to Mexico to buy them. We conceded the point, but it was a close thing. So when I met Wendy’s sister today I couldn’t keep from staring at her teeth. They’re nice teeth.

We told Wendy about it later at the reception. She gave one of her wonderful laughs, and said her mother would have really enjoyed that, and how happy her mother had been that she had such close friends.

The truth is we are all really fortunate to have found each other and become friends. I guess Danna and I have known each other all our lives, but now Debbi and Wendy are as much our sisters as we are to one another. I once heard someone say that with family you get what you get, but you get to choose your friends.

I’ve made some really good choices, and I’m blessed with friends.