March 9, 2005
I am getting off track this weekend. I'm flying to Buffalo with a new friend, Faith of Think On and Dana. They've adopted me as their new art friend and I think we may have been art triplets separated at birth. It's not often I have a great art friend, and to have two, is well, worth a trip to frigid Buffalo!
Certain family members are reacting like I announced that I was going to Capri for the weekend, or perhaps Australia just for fun. They are not used to the ol' Mom traveling anywhere. They are lining up errands and chores that I must do for them. Now! But it's too late, I've bought the ticket and I intend to get totally off track and lost in a weekend of art and food. Yes, there's better be good food to go along with hours of art talk, show 'n tell, and general hilarity. And having been at Faith's apartment when she was making a daube, the only time I've known anyone outside of a cookbook author who made a daube, I expect we are not going to be getting our meals in the drive-thru lane. I hope to report on some cool Buffalo restaurants when I return.
Not that's it's not frigid here. Yesterday was hellacious and involved a long court session, followed by driving in a white out, picking up The Little One early from school, driving to my doctor in the snowstorm The kicker was that I had to fast for some blood tests. When I got to the doctor's office a half hour early (2:15), I told them that I hadn't eaten since the night before and was feeling very shaky, so could they take me early. Sure, no problem. And they called me in right away, told me to strip down, handed me a gown, and then left me in the frigid examining room for about twenty minutes. I was contemplating eating some anti-acid tablet samples that they had on display when they finally got the ball rolling. Take the blood, please!
In the blinding snow with winds as high as 50 mph, I had to stop at the grocery store to buy something for a proper dinner because I was about to pass out. I made roast beef, roasted red potatoes and carrots, and refrigerator biscuits. Of course, while I made this, I was grazing through all the food groups, noshing on anything that my hand landed on in the refrigerator, accompanied by a giant latte from Cosi's. That resulted in a whopper of a stomach ache and I ended up not being able to eat ANY dinner. I had quite a pity party that evening and went to bed early.
Today I came home nearly as famished since I was in a deposition from 10:00 until 3:30 during which time I consumed a cup of tea and a snack bag of peanut butter crackers. I never eat breakfast so I was starving and came home and whipped up homemade macaroni and cheese. I 'd been dreaming about it for two days, and then was bummed out to realize that we had no breadcrumbs for a crunchy topping. I needed the crunchy topping. I remembered my husband substituting commercially prepared cornbread stuffing when we ran out of bread crumbs and he wanted to make breaded cod filets, and the result was a crisp, crunchy and delicately flavored breading. The other half of the bag was still in the pantry and I put it to good use. I just snuck a piece of the finished dish and the crunchy cornbread crumbs is more delicious than the seasoned Italian breadcrumbs on top of the mac and cheese.
I never make mac and cheese the same way twice. I rarely make it all, actually, because certain plebian children "prefer" Kraft Mac-n-Cheese. God bless Kraft for making a totally horrid product that children love because it sure has saved me plenty of mealtimes over the years. But I Will Not Eat It.
I tried to keep the fat count on this dish down, so I only used a half stick butter, skim milk, and cheddar, mozzarella, and some spicy cheese. I snuck in some mustard and horseradish along with a little garlic and nutmeg. I can't make it too gourmet or The Little One will turn her nose up. I added a lot of paprika to give it that runny orange look that she so loves. I hope the DH gets home soon, because I am about to go down and dish it out.
P. S. - While I am typing this, The Little One just yelled up to me and asked, "Mom, what's for dinner?"
Since my usual reply is "Chinese or pizza", I quite proudly answered, "Homemade macaroni and cheese!".
What did my kid say?
"Can we go to the diner"?