Wednesday, August 8, 2007

cheesy bacony cheese

Last week the macaroni and cheese at Hoover's made me so sad. It is damn good mac and cheese, don't get me wrong. I had leftovers, and the next day when I scraped it out of my to-go box it made actual squeaky noises. Which I think indicates extreme cheesy awesomeness.

But you just can't go out to some restaurant and get mac and cheese like Joe made it. My favorite time he made it was three years ago. We cooked a massive Thanksgiving feast with Joe and Jenn. Joe smoked the meats and made an enormous, oven-sized pan of his brilliant m/c. Jenn did pies, and Eric and I did a pale imitation of my Grandma's awesome rolls, plus sides. Joe's m/c was staggering. This enormous pan was probably four inches deep with his four-cheese, bacon, who-knows-what-all concoction. Lotsa browned crumb thingies on top. Ahhhh. The dude knew how to make it right.

Then in February we went over to cook a meal for Jenn and Joe, and sure enough, Joe whipped out some leftover m/c to add to the meal. He told us, as if he were giving us a priceless gift, that the secret to his mac and cheese was beer. Ah ha! It makes perfect sense.

Does anyone know which cheeses? How much bacon? What kinda beer? It might be something we need to work on together, rebuilding Joe's masterful macaroni and cheese. Or at least trying to. Then we can all sit around a giant pan of it and remember the amazing ways Joe fed us, with comfort food, disturbing humor, preposterous movies, music, and general crazy Joeishness. Sigh.

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