I tried to cook the other day. I know. I’m surprised too. I
mean, you’d think that a woman who has set fire to as many kitchens
as I have would learn that the world is a much better place when I
order take-out, but I tried to cook anyway.
I tried to cook the other day. I know. I’m surprised too. I mean, you’d think that a woman who has set fire to as many kitchens as I have would learn that the world is a much better place when I order take-out, but I tried to cook anyway.
Specifically, I tried to cook macaroni and cheese, which, as it happens, is very difficult to make. Unless all the ingredients come in a blue box – and then it is very simple to make. Which is how macaroni and cheese should be, if you ask me.
But I digress– because I didn’t try to make the blue box stuff. No, I tried to make HOMEMADE macaroni and cheese. And that kind of macaroni and cheese is a lot more complicated.
But I didn’t know that when I started. You see, I got this cooking magazine in the mail. I don’t usually get cooking magazines – mainly because they tempt me to cook and also, my current homeowner’s insurance policy has some sort of clause that exempts them from paying if I burn down another kitchen. It doesn’t sound fair, but that was the only way to keep them from charging several thousand dollars a week just to insure my home.
Anyway, I got this cooking magazine in the mail. I’m sure it was a mistake. It was probably really addressed to one of my neighbors – who, as far as I know, do not have cooking-preventive clauses on their homeowner policies. And, since I was all out of stuff to read, I read the cooking magazine.
I was shocked to find out that some people make their macaroni and cheese from scratch. Before I read this astonishing recipe, I was under the distinct impression that making macaroni and cheese from scratch meant that you made it in a pot on the stove, rather than microwaving it.
Turns out I was wrong.
Turns out you can make your own macaroni and cheese using a very complex recipe that requires approximately 457 ingredients, some of which need to be imported from other countries. And it only takes three hours.
That’s right. Three hours. Can you believe it? I mean, the blue box kind is cooked in 3 minutes. Oh sure, if you’re microwaving two servings it takes six minutes – but three hours? Who has three hours to devote to making macaroni and cheese?
Well, I guess I do. That’s right – I took three hours of my life and cooked. And something amazing happened. I didn’t cut myself while grating the four different cheeses, and I didn’t slice my fingers off while chopping parsley. Best of all, I didn’t burn down the kitchen. There wasn’t even a tiny fire.
It was a miracle.
And after cooking, chopping and baking, I had a beautiful casserole filled with macaroni and cheese. My family sat around the table, in awe. I carefully cradled the gooey, good, stuff in a spoon and placed it lovingly into warmed and waiting bowls. My family took their first bites eagerly.
And they crunched.
Turns out that fancy magazines with fancy recipes for macaroni and cheese actually assume that the people following the recipes know how to cook. Specifically, they assume that you can boil water. And that’s where I failed. I can’t boil water. So the noodles were uncooked.
But all was not lost. I had a blue box in the pantry. And just because I felt brave – I didn’t even microwave it. I made it from scratch, on the stove. The way homemade macaroni and cheese should be made.
