I Am A Blue Box Connoisseur

When I was little we didn't eat together much as a family, unless of course you count those Sunday night 'dinners' that turned into 'very early Monday morning dinners' because my mom wouldn't stop drinking long enough to cook the roast and mash the potatoes, and I really don't.

So my sister and I ate a lot of .19 cents a box Macaroni and Cheese which explains the malnourished look that we had for years (and has been erased forever with such Delicacies as Strawberry Milkshake Creme Oreos). I never even tasted Kraft Mac and Cheese until I met Ward and never ate 'real' Mac and Cheese until I married him and his mom started making it for us.

I now make Macaroni and Cheese, the real stuff, homemade, whatever you want to call it, several times a month, but I still, to Ward's chagrin, purchase, cook and consume good ole faithful, or as we whom love the stuff like to call it, Blue Box.

Even at .89 cents a box and made with a 'powder' they like to call 'real' cheese, this stuff is still a staple in our house. The closest Ward will come to consuming alternative Mac and Cheese is Velveeta and he will not share in a the delights of a serving of Blue Box, even if it is all I make for dinner.

But anyways, back to my point. You have to be very, very careful when making Blue Box. The simplest mistake will turn what could be a wonderful comfort meal into mush worthy only of the nearest garbage disposal.

To start with, let the water come to a boil, go ahead. It won't take long. And throw just a little, like 1/12 of a teaspoon of salt into the pot, you know you want to. Once your water is boiling, throw in those noodles that they must produce only for boxes of Kraft and store brand Mac and Cheese.

And then cook these abnormal noodles for 6:13. I am not kidding folks. You want your pasta a little al dente, but not too al dente. Your mac and cheese shouldn't have 'crunch' to it unless you add bacon bits.

Then you will want to drain your noodles, but be careful. When I was pregnant I tried to give my belly third degree burns when draining a pot of noodles. The water touched my belly and I immediately dropped the entire pot of pasta in the sink and on the floor and well my lunch was gone and I stopped cooking until the twins were about 3 weeks old and I could reach the sink again. So be careful is all I am saying.

Then put some butter in your pot before you give the noodles back to that pot. But be careful what you add to the mac and cheese. The box makes it sound so simple but it takes much care and consideration for pasta perfection. For example, you must use salted butter. I wouldn't make it with margarine or unsalted butter. And do not use the four tablespoons suggested on the traditional box, it is just excessive really to put that much butter in there, really much less, like 2.345 tablespoons is enough. And only the finest Fat Free Horizon Organic Milk touches my fine powder cheese therefore setting off a reaction that results in the cheesiest macs around. OK, not really. So then you will want to mix for 837 strokes, this many strokes is required to make sure all of that powder is adequately mixed. A biteful of that powder stuff (stuff being the closest descriptive word I can grasp to describe the powder cheese at the moment) is absolutely disgusting, truly. Now, grab a bowl. Fill it. Enjoy!

You probably never knew so much went into making a box of that stuff. I realize I am a blue box connoisseur. I have probably ingested somewhere around 491 boxes of this stuff.

-june