Macaroni and Cheese: Heart Attack on a Plate.

This inaugural post is going to be somewhat short, but a taste of what's to come. Since I've no interest in Lebanese politics anymore after having to live with those nearsighted swine for three years, I thought I'd settle on a few of the things that mean most to me in life (outside of my family): food and history.

Post number one is food related, and a hell of a way to start off: macaroni and cheese.

Sounds lame, but bear with me. To give proper credit, we took an Alton Brown recipe and modified it a bit. He's Southern so he knows his terrifyingly fatty yet delicious stuff about as well as that grotesque belch of a woman, Paula Deen.

Mac and Cheese actually has a pretty neat pedigree. It originated somewhere in northern Europe (Bavarians have a delightful variation as well), but Americans picked it up from France when Thomas Jefferson made his way back home with the recipe. He tended to do this quite a bit, bringing back not only wine, but grapes, olive trees and hundreds of other things that he then grew in Monticello that had no business growing in Monticello.

The first time it was served at a state dinner was 1802, though I'm sure that the Clinton White House made the boxed variety a staple. The most repellent version of this was made by the aforementioned belch, Mrs. Deen, who wraps it in bacon and fries it, as though it wasn't bad enough as it is. Perhaps Minnesotans will incorporate this into their state fair next year since they've fried everything except macaroni, live rats and people (as far as I know).

For the recipe, you'll need:
1/2 pound macaroni (I prefer the big stuff)
1/2 c finely chopped onion (do this beforehand)
12 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese or a mix of your choice
3 cups of milk
1 tempered egg yolk (google it, it's important!)
two strips of bacon, frozen
1/2 c bread crumbs
1 tsp mustard
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 bay leaf
1 tsp paprika
salt, pepper

1. Cook the macaroni until it's a shade past al-dente. Whatever that means. Just don't have it mushy or too hard. If you want to be cute, toss a bullion cube in with the water. Drain it when it's done so it doesn't keep cooking.

2. While this is going, preheat the oven to 350, then turn to the sauce. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and slowly whisk in the flour 1/2 tbsp at a time to form a roux. Whisk in the mustard and whisk continuously for a few minutes - make sure you don't get any lumps (this method is the same one you'd use for gravy). Add the chopped onions, milk, paprika and bay leaf and allow it to simmer a bit to thicken and incorporate the flavor of the bay leaf. Simmer for about 10 minutes while you take care of the egg.

3. In the meantime, extract an egg yolk (if you don't know how to do this... well, youtube probably has something on this too) and whisk it up in bowl. Temper the egg to prevent it from turning into scrambled eggs in your sauce. Do this by slowly adding tiny bits of your hot liquid to the egg while whisking furiously. Two people are helpful for this one, since someone should be making sure your milk sauce isn't burning. When your egg is thoroughly incorporated into the hot liquid, slowly whisk it into the main pot of sauce. Add some salt and pepper to taste - probably more than you think.

4. Whisk is a fun word to write. Now cut the heat to the sauce, remove your bay leaf and slowly mix in 3/4 of the cheese until it's incorporated nicely. Mix in the noodles, coat thoroughly, and dump into a pan. It should be gooey bordering on wet, which will give it something to cook off in the oven.

5. Toss a bit of butter into a pan, melt it, then mix in the bread crumbs, cooking a bit to dry them. Then sprinkle the remainder of the cheese on top of the pan of pasta, adding the bread crumbs on top of that and finally the frozen bacon, which you should chop into manageable bite sized pieces. Freezing it makes it easier to cut, and it thaws in a few seconds and will cook nicely on top of the casserole.

6. Chuck the whole pile into the oven for 30 minutes, checking every so often to make sure nothing is burning. It's delicious. I'll post a picture of it when I get the time to pull it off of my camera. In the meantime, just imagine it - or make it yourself!