Two years ago: Broccoli Melts and White Russian One year ago: Tomato-Glazed Meatloaves with Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes and Pomegrante Grapefruit Paloma * often on days I thought I’d be fine just eating, like, a hard-boiled egg for breakfast after going for a run and roar into the kitchen an hour later ready to tackle any food that isn’t already dead Previously And it’s a single serving, so when your craving has passed, you can return to a life of leafy greens, or, you know, do it again tomorrow. This is for 15 minutes from now, all in one pot, from ingredients you already keep around. A miraculous hack (you don’t even pre-boil the pasta or make a sauce) of a rich, bronzed macaroni-and-cheese also exists in the archives, but it spends a long time in the oven. Please note a perfect recipe for a decadent, show-stealing, centerpiece casserole of macaroni and cheese with baked buttery crumbs on top already exists and we’ve been making it for years. I want to talk about why we like it and what I - an adult who doesn’t want to make a habit of the boxed stuff, nor live a life devoid of the dish it creates - do when I’m craving stovetop pasta with a sauce of melted cheese intensely* and nothing else will do. I understand that the internet can supply me with orange cheese powder but I promise, that’s not where I’m going with this. I love orange cheese powder and I do not wish to keep it to myself any longer. Maybe leveling things up earlier on will help avoid this outcome? So I bought a box, made it for dinner that night (with the requisite steamed broccoli on the side, nobody ever tells you how much broccoli you’re going to steam when you become a parent) and oh, I’m sorry, were you waiting for me to call it terrible? A disappointment? A memory from childhood that did not hold up? It was anything but. Realistically, by the time my kids grow up, I will have inundated them so with so many kale caesars, farro salads and wholesome slaws, sweet potatoes, and homemade from-scratch birthday cakes they’ll have no choice but to rebel with a steady diet of sugar cereals, frozen pocketed foods, and frosting from a can. I realize some people pat themselves on the back about this, but I’m more skeptical about things.

A couple years ago, at my second home (the grocery store, alas, not, like, the shore) I was passing through the boxed macaroni and cheese section and realized my son, then five, had grown up so far without ever trying it.

Mac and cheese sauce from scratch