This is just to tell you that there is a whole lot more to me than a freaking tattoo. Even if it is purple. I am:
Fifty.
A librarian.
A teacher.
A mother.
Short.
Hearing-impaired.
A lover of all things Disney, especially the Mouse.
Jewish by heritage, if not faith.
Married.
Anal retentive. (That's the polite word for it, according to Woody Allen.)
A baby boomer.
A Jersey Girl. Oh wait, a Jersey Old Bag.
Advisor to my school's chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance.
A sister.
A friend to cats, even those who don't use the litterbox when they should.
An insomniac.
Did I say short?
A packrat.
A poor housekeeper.
An allergy sufferer.
A website designer and manager.
An all-around helpful- and friendly-type person.
So for once, could you google me for something -- anything -- else but chai + tattoo?
Thank you.
I would like to share with you The Story of Macaroni and Cheese
I love macaroni and cheese. And yes, if I could, I would marry it.
It is my ultimate comfort food, which is odd, really, since I don't remember ever having it as a child. My childhood comfort foods were pastina in broth, which they gave us when we were sick, and bananas and cream, which is what both grandmas always gave me for lunch when they were looking after me. That's sour cream, of course.
Back to the mac. The only cheese I remember having in the house when I was little was Velveeta, and I thought it was cheese. My parents came from these oddly different backgrounds when it came to food and eating; unfortunately, it was Jack who came from the home where the proto-typical Jewish mother made one fattening, mouth-watering delight after another, and only used farm-fresh ingredients. But he was not the day-to-day cook in my fifties sitcom family, Shirl was. Her mother was the exception that proved the Jewish-mothers-can-cook rule. Bananas and cream was actually the top of her game. And because they had always lived in the city, at least since my grandma left Europe as a teenager in 1910, they thought that canned food was the bees knees. Imagine: green beans whenever you wanted them! You could get milk in a can, too, but thankfully my mother had outgrown that one. But on the Shirl side of the family, Velveeta was as real as cheese got.
Fast forward to my teen years, where my favorite food for a long time was actually chocolate milk, the kind you buy pre-mixed at the store. No bosco or quik (feh) for me; no, I had to have the real thing. Then I found a new love, and it became my diet staple for another few years, complementing the chocolate milk: beefaroni. The perfect food.
My college roommate and I often cooked in our room (they can't get us for it now, can they?) and her favorite thing to make was macaroni and cheese, which was new for me. I had heard of it, of course, I saw the Kraft box on TV, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to try it. This is how she made it: after boiling the elbow mac, she meticulously tore up slices of American cheese into tiny squares, and melted them in. It was delicious.
Then, years later came the magic day when I realized that cheddar cheese was good. And when I saw pre-grated cheese in Shop Rite, oh well, you can imagine the joy.
When R was about three or four, she had dinner with my parents once a week or so, and one night, when I offered to make her macaroni and cheese, she said that, no, she like the way grandma made it better.
Grandma makes macaroni and cheese? Yes, she has that blue box. **teeth grinding**
Fast forward to now. R, it so happens, is not a lover of pasta in general, but says my mac and cheese is the only kind she'll eat. I can always count on K to share a pot with me. I only make it about once a week, because, really, I've got to have some kind of self-control.
What could it possibly have been that made me pick up a box of Velveeta in the supermarket last week? Nostalgia? Dementia? We will never know.
So one night I made my favorite meal with Velveeta, not cheddar, a little milk to help it melt, not the generous scoop of margarine I usually toss in. (That's my recipe: elbows, cheddar, margarine. Haute cuisine, this ain't.)
Velveeta. It wasn't cheese in 1958, and it's not cheese now.
I learned my lesson, I promise. I'm still shivering at the very thought.
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I'm watching Good Will Hunting
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