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RDJ-- Baked Macaroni and Cheese, 10-10-09
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RDJ
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Oct 11, 2009 15:44 PDT
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Volume 12 Number 237
US Library of Congress ISSN: 1530-3292
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Baked Macaroni and Cheese
1 (8-ounce) package dried elbow macaroni or favorite pasta (about 2 1/4
cups, uncooked)
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon whole-grain Dijon mustard
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce
1 (8-ounce) package shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (optional)
Toppings (optional):
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Melt
butter in a large heavy saucepan over low heat; add flour, stirring
until smooth. Cook 3 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Turn heat to
medium; gradually whisk in milk, and cook over medium heat, stirring or
whisking constantly until thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in pasta,
mustard, and next 4 ingredients, stirring just until cheese begins to
melt.
Pour pasta mixture into a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch baking dish.
Sprinkle with Parmigiano-Reggiano or more Cheddar. If desired, top with
fresh breadcrumbs, and drizzle evenly with melted butter.
Bake, uncovered, at 350F for 25 minutes or until bubbly and golden. Let
stand 5 minutes before serving. Yield: Makes 4 to 6 servings.
(nutritional info not available)
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AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills
Childhood’s End
Usually around this time of year I take down my old, much-used copy of
“Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories” and read Truman Capote’s
short story about his childhood in Alabama called “A Christmas Memory.”
This is the story about his simple elderly cousin, who calls him Buddy,
and the fruitcakes they make for strangers each year in late November.
“It’s fruitcake weather,” his friend says on a clear, cold
coming-of-winter morning, and out they go to search for windfall pecans
and to buy supplies to make their fruitcakes. These mornings feel like
fruitcake weather to me, a coming of winter, coming of Christmas kind of
weather that reminds me of my Florida childhood, of aunts and uncles
visiting, and my round white-haired grandmother baking in her kitchen.
We did not have pecan trees, but there were orange and tangerine trees,
and guava trees out by the fence. It is easy to climb a tree and pluck
a ripe mango, and eat it with the juice dripping down your chin while
your legs dangled over a thick branch down into space. Back in the
little house the women relatives are getting Sunday dinner and my older
sister is setting the big oak table. The men smoking pipes or cigars on
the porch ask my father how the fishing has been this season in
Whitewater Bay. My father, who runs a charter boat out of Flamingo down
at the tip of the Florida mainland, takes fishermen from up north out to
catch snook and tarpon and sometimes the giant grouper, which in those
less enlightened days we called Jewfish.
At the time I am thinking of I am five years old, listening in on the
elders, who seem ancient but cannot be much more than thirty or
thirty-five. Even my great uncle, my grandfather’s younger brother, is
only in his fifties, my own age today. Uncle Ernest has white hair and a
round, jolly face. He is married to a horse faced, frightening woman
with a braying voice, my aunt Amy. I am named for my great uncles,
Ernest and Walter, though Walter, the charming and flamboyant brother,
died years before I was born.
It’s fruitcake weather, and I remember my older brother hopping out of
bed to light the wood burning stove in the living room to take the early
morning chill off the air. He is eleven, a fierce warrior with
palmetto swords and homemade bamboo pea shooters. To me he is the soul
of competence; he can plait a lanyard out of palmetto fronds, whistle
between his fingers, steer a boat, and scale and gut a fish.
My sister, who is nine, is the teacher. She reads to me from her
library books about Lancelot and Sir Galahad and corrects my grammar. I
am her student and the actor in her dramas. She would like to teach me
to be a knight like Galahad, but the best I can do is learn to bow and
gallop around like a boy centaur, swinging my palmetto branch sword.
In Florida winters, I lie barefoot in the grass and watch the clouds
scoot across the sky. Christmas is coming, and I have studied the toy
section of the Sears mail order catalog until the pages have worn thin.
My mother measures us for pants and sweaters, and writes our sizes down
on the order forms, but I am hoping for either the gigantic toy gas
station with cars and gas pumps and little attendants dressed in white
uniforms, or the tall castle with turrets and flags flying and knights
on horseback with lances or swords held steady.
In “A Christmas Memory,” the young Buddy's true childhood ends at the
age of seven or eight when he is taken away from his beloved friend,
sent away to military school, leaving his cousin and her dog Queenie to
carry on their fruitcake making alone. My Florida childhood ended at
about the same age, when we moved to the bleak wintry landscape of
Tennessee, leaving behind my grandmother and the fruit orchard, the
bamboo thicket and the palmetto swords.
It's a coming of winter morning fifty years later. The ingredients for
half a dozen fruitcakes are piled in a bowl in the kitchen. My daughters
come downstairs to bring me hand colored paper angels to decorate my
desk. It's fruitcake weather, and my childhood is reborn in their eyes.
(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is
copyright © 2009 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To
contact Walt, address your emails to awmi-@verizon.net ).
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