I’ve Lost the Taste for Mac’n’Cheese

Dearest Rachel –

I know I really don’t have the right to complain about this. There are plenty of times where I don’t feel like cooking – most recipes are made for at least a family of four, anyway, which, now that I think about it, must have irritated you no end in your own right, given our collective distaste for leftovers – so when Logan volunteers to prepare something, I really ought to be grateful. But his specialty dish – macaroni and cheese – has left me with a wish that he’d do something – anything – else.

Hey, I get it; it’s a cheap comfort food, and it’s easy to make – so easy, that it’s one of the first pre-prepared box mixes in consumer product history. The ready-mix box is so ingrained in North American culture, in fact, that while we Americans refer to it as mac’n’cheese, our neighbors to the north just call it Kraft Dinner, which would be like calling every hamburger, regardless of provenance, a Whopper.

And in further fairness to Logan, he doesn’t rely on the box mix; he makes this dish from scratch. He shreds the cheese himself, and adds it to an ample helping of heavy cream to make the sauce, as opposed to mixing powder with milk and butter. He even makes a point of adding bread crumbs to the top of the dish, and baking it, rather than just serving it out of the pot, bachelor style. This is not your cheap, ‘broke food’ type of recipe that he’s putting together – this is the real, gourmet approach to the traditional comfort food, which makes my aversion to it seem that much more churlish.

The thing is, though, his insistence on preparing this ‘properly’ is actually part of the reason I’m averse to it – which is completely separate from whether I like it or not. I’m already trying to eat more protein and vegetal matter (mostly in the form of fruit rather than actual vegetables, but that’s beside the point for now) as opposed to carbohydrates; this dish is nothing but carbs. Add to that the generous helping of cheese and heavy cream, and this is a lot of calories for very little nutritional value. I’m not denying that it tastes good; Logan has a talent for this (and, if you consider the old adage about not trusting skinny cooks, just observing him in the kitchen is proof of his ability). But considering my goals regarding weight loss, I can sense that this isn’t good for me without even bothering to dig in.

Likewise, I’ve probably gotten spoiled from my travels, and need to have meat in my meals. To be sure, breakfast is more trouble than it’s worth to fry up a couple strips of bacon just for my own consumption, so I let that meal slide these days, but for dinner? I’ve got to have something with meat in it somewhere – and there’s none to be found in this dish. I might accept that if he were to do that, it wouldn’t be kosher, except that he doesn’t stick to those dietary restrictions as a rule to begin with. He likes himself a cheeseburger now and again – with bacon, even! – and so it shouldn’t be an issue to include something with protein in his mac’n’cheese collation. Now, it may be that he’s a purist when it comes to the dish – and I get that there are a lot of such people who consider the addition of meat to mac’n’cheese to be a mild form of blasphemy (Daniel himself doesn’t seem to like the idea, although he wouldn’t go that far in describing it as such), and I can accept that take. But in such a circumstance, I think I would prefer this to then be a side dish to a simple (and maybe small, to make up for the existence of this side dish) meat entree, rather than the entree itself.

But the thing that really sticks in my craw about mac’n’cheese, especially in a bachelor household such as ours, is the leftovers. More to the point, the fact that I don’t find out about them being served until the next day. No, I’m not complaining about the boys finishing the dish without letting me have any – quite the opposite, in fact, as the last time, they set aside a portion after I’d fallen asleep without having any that evening, and it’s still sitting in the refrigerator, waiting for me – I’m talking about finding the dishes in the sink, with the cheese residue caked onto them to the point where you practically need boiling water and a crowbar to get it off of them (I know it’s new and supposedly efficient, but I wouldn’t trust the dishwasher to pry this stuff off; it would probably just sanitize it to the point where it might be safe to eat off of, but it would effectively become a new layer of coating on the plate). I don’t cook all that much because I don’t like having to clean up afterwards; it’s just that little bit more galling to be cleaning up without having been the one to cook. But if I don’t, it’s just going to get that much more caked-on, so I get out the copper wool, and scratch away until I can feel it getting reasonably smooth, and hope the dishwasher can take care of the rest.

I wonder if this is how you felt in the kitchen after one meal or another. I hope I showed enough appreciation to you for all your hard work, honey. If not, maybe this is fate’s way of giving me what I deserve for not being as appreciative as I should have been. Pity it means that I’ve lost the taste for mac’n’cheese in the process.

Anyway, I need to get on with the day, honey. Keep an eye on me, and wish me luck, as I’m sure I’m going to need it.