On the familiarity of mac and cheese….

We’re all grown. My boys are grown. I am beyond grown. But all we want today for Thanksgiving seems to be macaroni and cheese as our main meal. (One of them would also like stuffing, from a box, on the side. He has no sense of competing starches, and that’s okay.)

It isn’t lost on me that our pick is a comfort food.

I have suggested other things I could buy to go with it. They’ve reiterated that all they really want is macaroni and cheese and bread. I’ve suggested that I could at least add red sauce and make it a baked pasta, which feels more like a meal than a side… the simple addition of a jar of sauce.

Why on Thanksgiving do I feel like it has to be different, and more, and more balanced, and more fancy and more special? I know better than that. 

I keep going through the macaroni and cheese recipes I saved from Instagram in recent months, trying to figure out which might actually work and whether I really want to go and buy all of the stuff required and then spend time grating multiple kinds of cheese. (Do we even still have a grater? I’m not sure.) 

I’m looking for the perfect macaroni and cheese recipe, but part of me wonders if the fact that they just want macaroni and cheese means they want my macaroni and cheese… the way I’ve always made it.

I’ve been looking for some new and fancy way to do it this year, so aware that this year, with the passing this summer of my spouse/their other mother, everything feels different. 

I’ve been looking for a better macaroni and cheese. 

But as I sit here thinking about what I need to get at the grocery to make someone else’s recipe, I wonder if the reality is, I just need to make it the way I’ve always made it.

Honestly, I would rather have my macaroni and cheese.

I don’t wanna try something new. I don’t wanna risk being disappointed by an Internet recipe that doesn’t work. (I’m not sure anything with pasta, butter, cream, and cheese can really be bad.) 

It took me a while to come around to the fact that, maybe, just maybe, what they want is the familiarity of the known, the comfort of history.

I’m still thinking about one I saw that adds a cracker topping. I’m not big on recipes. Maybe I’ll make a Frankensteinian mac and cheese and throw some new things in.

That sounds about right.

(I still think I need to pick up a ready-made rotisserie chicken, but never before have I worried about us just eating mac and cheese. It’s always been a meal.)

If you have a perfect macaroni and cheese recipe, though, I would love to know.

(I just checked. We don’t have a grater. I guess I can buy one at the grocery? Or maybe it’s a sign to just use what I always use or can buy grated. Question answered.)