Homemade Mac'n'Cheese

A recipe never  before written down... A tribute to moms and dads whose children have been dubbed "picky eaters," have sensory integration issues, or just have a plain old stubborn streak when it comes to food.

With thanks to families who so often let me bring Will's mac'n'cheese to dinner.  Your hospitality toward my pan of mac permanently seals our friendship.

With apologies to moms whose children beg for "Linda's Mac'n'Cheese" and turn their noses up at their plates of "real food."

And for Annie, who Will and Liam love, perhaps more than my mac'n'cheese...

Here's Will's favorite: Homemade Mac'n'Cheese

Bring water to a boil.  Dump in 1 cup of Prince Elbows.  While that cooks, gather 2 T. real unsalted butter; 4 slices of Kraft Singles orange prepared cheese product; and 1 1/2 T. of 2% milk and 1 1/2 T. of half & half.  I usually get a 1/4 measuring cup out and just dump in equal parts of these two.

Put colander in sink and dump cooked mac into it.  Put pan back on low heat and add, in order, butter, milk/half&half, and cheese slices.  Turn heat up a little bit and stir constantly until individual ingredients combine into cheese sauce.  Remove from heat.  Stir in macaroni.   Cover with lid.  Let set about 5 minutes (while you finish preparing everyone else's dinner...) then stir again and serve.  In a bowl with a spoon = ultimate comfort.

After years of perfecting this, I rarely veer from these ingredients.  The one addition I do of our "at-home Will & Liam-only version" is a little Benefiber in the cheese sauce.  I also occasionally substitute real Kraft orange deli cheese.  Also, microwaved leftovers just aren't the same as the fresh stuff.

 

Geraniums?

Thanks to the heat, we’ve spent the last few days indoors and the old bites are scabbed over and not itching as much.  Thanks to friends, yesterday we ventured forth with a new no-see-um repellent. DEET in Back Woods Off didn’t seem to faze them.  Skinstastic, they eat it for breakfast.  Welcome EcoSmart, an organic spray from the grocery store.   No-see-ums no like it.

The first squirts are repelling.  Honestly, you want to get away from yourself.  Initially, I felt as though I’d just had a bath in an over-sized mortar bowl after the pestle creamed geraniums, rosemary, cinnamon, and lemongrass.  Each intense in its own right, but the combination... whew.  Will’s take, “This is horrible but necessary, right Mom?” looking at me for reassurance.

The trick is to spray everyone so that no one notices.  You all smell the same.  Plus, the initial smack of this concoction calms down pretty quickly.  Then at night everyone bathes or showers – or smells like the odd man out.  EcoSmart vs. Dove.

Diversion… This makes me think of the story from my uncle who lived on a Naval submarine years ago.  With stale air circulating weeks under water, everyone smelled the same air.  After being onboard for a while, no one noticed the sub aroma until the sub surfaced; then the fresh air triggered an “Ugh, what is that!”  I think this guy on a Yahoo Q&A page probably sums up sub life pretty well, particularly the smells: What's it like on a submarine?  Pretty close, Uncle Gary?

We haven’t ventured to the beach yet to test EcoSmart on the greenheads, but on the deck with the no-see-ums, it seems effective -- albeit confusing to some: early yesterday morning a honey bee lazily lingered near my arm.  Its wings whispered, “Geranium?”

Construction Magic

Mars and Pluto are out of alignment. MadMimi, the newsletter program I use to send you these fancy letters, does not want to talk to me if I say, "Hey, let's send out some pictures!"  She was fine earlier... today she has a bug.

A cool cloud called "Dropbox" -- where you can add files and share with others "easily" -- must be caught in a thunderstorm.

Recent pictures I took of construction on the house are stuck on my cell phone.  My cell provider does not recognize my location.  And I forget to forward pictures to my email when I'm running errands in town and have coverage.

Yesterday morning, after my computer participated in an "origami yoda" session with Will, it lost contact with the mouse.  (Finally, last night Bill said, "Did you try taking the battery out to shut it down and reboot?"  Obviously, it worked because here I am...)

Amidst this technology rubble, Bill's hand is recovering nicely and construction is going as scheduled.

The house.

Well, it's amazing... absolutely amazing.  Interior walls are framed; electrical and plumbing are done.  The builders are in a holding pattern waiting for all the building inspectors to give the thumbs-up so the insulation crew can start.

Pictures of the interior might make sense to a construction crew, but to the naked eye without a set of plans, it looks as thought I've taken a shot of vertical 2x4's lined up evenly like dominoes, ready for someone to push over the first one.

On the other hand, exterior shots are all about obvious progress.

Side of house before:

Side of house after -- from a different angle:

Back of house before:

Back of house during:

Back of house after:

What a facelift, huh?

Liquid Farming: Fishing & Problem-solving

We’ve been throwing lines into the Annisquam River to fish.    From the beach or the 12x15 dock, there is a lot of ducking, casting, and reeling.  Plus mid-air swinging of lead hooks.  And plunked down rods when “I’ve-got-to-jump-in-now!” hits.  Leaving baited hooks and bare feet and a griping mother on the dock.  And giggles and swimmers in the water. For the perfectionists in our house, fishing is a test of patience.  Like golf, it’s not a matter of simply swinging a club or casting a line and getting the ball in the hole or a fish on the hook.  Both are games of variables.  Of problem-solving.  Of remaining calm when the perfect cast doesn’t land 10 yards in front of you in the middle of the river channel, but 20 yards to the right of you.  Over three people and a walkway to the dock next to you.   And anchors on the seaweed-covered lines holding that dock in place.  The look of horror brought to the face of a perfectionist in this event… predictable.

Then the diagnosis of the problem.  First, good job not hooking any of the three people.  Now, gently reel in the line following it as you go.  Yank, yank, yank at the scene of the stuck bobber, weight, and hook.  And… we yanked in the direction that pulled that tooth even deeper into the line.  Looks like we need to cut the fishing line.  But it’s the hand-chosen neon yellow bobber!

What next?  I could jump in and get it.  But I don’t have trunks and the water is pretty cold.  Hey, I could cut the line and wait for the tide to go out… then get my bobber!  Yes!  And, in the meantime you get to learn how to string your own fishing line.

And we haven’t even gotten to bait  type or to depth of bait in the water, never mind the true want of catching a fish.  Every seasoned fisherman and woman creates one solely designed path for a particular spot or fish species.  The trick is weaving the path through trial and err, not as the crow flies.  Not as the perfectionists will it.

(Our first fishing expedition was on the 4th of July.  This way of life, Liquid Farming, takes some getting used to.)

Liquid Farming

Six years ago when Will and I made the 16-hour drive from Chicago to Boston to join Bill, who had already started his new job, I wondered how or if people in Mass. made a living off the land. There were acres and acres of trees in western Mass. Forestry? As the trees dispersed, cities built up. Commerce on paper. After finding our house and trying to dig a new flower garden, I was soon convinced there was no money coming from the dirt. The land is full of ledge that I have so often bemoaned. Moving from the Midwest to Northeast, I fought hard trying to think what I glued to the map in 4th grade when we were studying states and main resources.  I’m sure I found corn for Iowa, and I remember using cotton for the South.  However, I have no recollection of the Northeast.

But now, I’m sitting on the north-eastern edge of the U.S. -- on a liquid farm called the Atlantic.

 

4th of July. Fireworks. Reading. Fishing.

Last night in Gloucester, we took in the traditional fireworks display.  Driving around the loud and crazy festivities at Gloucester Harbor, we found a small, quiet park on the opposite of the harbor.  Space for the boys to run around while we waited for the first bang.   Far enough away that the bangs, swizzles, whistles, and chasers didn’t force the guys to watch with hands over their ears.  We named the fireworks: gold waterfalls, pyrite rocks, spiders, and whistlers. This morning, giving ourselves permission to simply sit and read.  (OK, there is one Leapster whispering beside me…)  Only fidgeting enough to scratch the combined 50 no-see-um bites we have from early evenings outside.  No-see-ums are flying teeth.  Tiny, tiny bugs that you can’t see or feel until they bite.  The choice is go inside or spray on a thick coating of Off at 6 p.m.  I prefer nightly baths to feeding flying teeth.

With threatening clouds overhead, the river is quiet and the tide is in.  After meeting a retired commercial fisherman earlier this week on the beach, Liam was ready to throw in a hook.  Liam didn’t flinch as he watched Ed work the hook through the eyes of an 8-inch herring he was using as bait.  Ed missed a couple good bites while chatting with us, so we didn’t actually see a fish from the river.

The next day, we had a lesson from a very knowledgeable and patient Dick’s Sporting Goods manager on rigging up a fishing pole and what bait to use.  The Malcolms now own four fishing rods.  The boys cast their first lines later that same day.

Apparently, there are 28-inch striped bass – “stripers” – and blue fish in the Annisquam River.  I fear catching a fish, particularly since I can only identify Caribbean reef fish and Iowa bull-heads.  According to Ed, blue fish are swimming teeth – they should be easy to ID.  Ed showed me the needle-nosed pliers he uses to remove hooks from the mouths of blue fish.  Consequently, we bought a multi-purpose tool at Dick’s: needle-nose pliers/line cutters.

On the first visit to the dock, it was soon apparent that nothing would be hauled in: it was a casting, reeling, and untangling session.  I was relieved.  While this practice was going on, a small boat pulled up to the dock and we met the neighbors across the street.  Rich information was gathered during this brief introduction:  the woman who has lived here 50+ years knows how to clean and fillet fish.  So…

On the second visit, Bill and I lugged a big blue bucket with us.  I also took a heavy beach towel to use as a lid, should we catch a big fish.  With a cast on one hand and a pick-line-low-weight-lifting restriction on the other, Bill was not going to be the one to haul it in or take it off the hook.  (Actually even if he had two fully-operating hands, there’s a good chance I would still be the one to fight the fish.)  On the walk to the dock, I checked out the shade tree where I could leave the bucket of fish as I dashed up to the neighbor’s house to plead for help.  All for naught.  Yet again, a practice session with a lot of boat traffic.

Today, with a quiet river and high tide, I’ll take the bucket again.  And hope there is movement across the street at our neighbor’s house.

Fireworks.  Reading.  Fishing.

A quiet 4th of July.

Unless we catch a fish…

(More about Liquid Farming: Fishing & Problem-solving.)

Fireworks. Reading. Fishing.

Last night in Gloucester, we took-in the traditional fireworks display.  Driving around the loud and crazy festivities at Gloucester Harbor, we found a small, quiet park on the opposite of the harbor.  Space for the boys to run around while we waited for the first bang.   Far enough away that the bangs, swizzles, whistles, and chasers didn’t force the guys to watch with hands over their ears.  We named the fireworks: gold waterfalls, pyrite rocks, spiders, and whistlers. This morning, giving ourselves permission to simply sit and read.  (OK, there is one Leapster whispering beside me…)  Only fidgeting enough to scratch the combined 50 no-see-um bites we have from early evenings outside.  No-see-ums are flying teeth.  Tiny, tiny bugs that you can’t see or feel until they bite.  The choice is go inside or spray on a thick coating of Off at 6 p.m.  I prefer nightly baths to feeding flying teeth.

This morning, with threatening clouds overhead, the river is quiet and the tide is in.  After meeting a retired commercial fisherman earlier this week on the beach, Liam was ready to throw in a hook.  Liam didn’t flinch as he watched Ed work the hook through the eyes of an 8-inch herring he was using as bait.  Ed missed a couple good bites while chatting with us, so we didn’t actually see a fish from the river.

The next day, we had a lesson from a very knowledgeable and patient Dick’s Sporting Goods manager on rigging up a fishing pole and what bait to use.  The Malcolms now own four fishing rods.  The boys cast their first lines later that same day.

Apparently, there are 28-inch striped bass – “stripers” – and blue fish in the Annisquam River.  I fear catching a fish, particularly since I can only identify Caribbean reef fish and Iowa bull-heads.  According to Ed, blue fish are swimming teeth – they should be easy to ID.  Ed showed me the needle-nosed pliers he uses to remove hooks from the mouths of blue fish.  Consequently, we bought a multi-purpose tool at Dick’s: needle-nose pliers/line cutters.

On the first visit to the dock, it was soon apparent that nothing would be hauled in: it was a casting, reeling, and untangling session.  I was relieved.  While this practice was going on, a small boat pulled up to the dock and we met the neighbors across the street.  Rich information was gathered during this brief introduction:  the woman who has lived here 50+ years knows how to clean and fillet fish.  So…

On the second visit, Bill and I lugged a big blue bucket with us.  I also took a heavy beach towel to use as a lid, should we catch a big fish.  With a cast on one hand and a pick-line-low-weight-lifting restriction on the other, Bill was not going to be the one to haul it in or take it off the hook.  (Actually even if he had two fully-operating hands, there’s a good chance I would still be the one to fight the fish.)  On the walk to the dock, I checked out the shade tree where I could leave the bucket of fish as I dashed up to the neighbor’s house to plead for help.  All for naught.  Yet again, a practice session with a lot of boat traffic.

Today, with a quiet river and high tide, I’ll take the bucket again.  And hope there is movement across the street at our neighbor’s house.

Fireworks.  Reading.  Fishing.

A quiet 4th of July.

Unless we catch a fish…

Live from Gloucester, MA!

I have a new computer, and all of my old stuff is on it!  Even those 30 shots of an English rose -- clear, blurry, and/or questionable.  Love digital, but I don't sort out the good from the bad.  I just dump them on the computer to store.  You know... so they're safe. Bill's hand is recovering nicely.  As of Friday, no more twice daily hydrogen peroxide baths.  We've passed the two-week mark on daily antibiotic infusions.  Two to four weeks remaining.  Unfortunately, with the pick-line in, that means Bill can't get wet.  (In case you missed the beginning of this story, here it is -- in a round-about way...) In February, we planned the summer with water in mind.  Since the 24th of June, we've been waking up to kayaks, fishing boats, lobster boats, and motor boats on the Annisquam River.

With construction progressing on our addition, we moved out of our house as we flew to England on May 26th.  Literally.  We threw wet towels and toothbrushes on top of a 2-foot high pile of stuff on the dining room table as we scrambled out the door at 6 a.m. to catch a plane.  Everything from the kitchen and living room, which are being renovated, has been shoved into the dining room and toy room, which will remain unchanged.

We came back from England and checked into a hotel for two weeks, including the last week of school.  While in England, the builders took over the house, gutted some of the rooms, and put up framing that now marks the new rooms inside.  Now, it looks more like the architectural drawings than it looks like our old house.

In the three houses we have owned, we have had add-on plans for "some day."  Twenty years later, this is some day.  With the scope of work, we couldn’t try to live in the house.

We decided to rent a house for the summer on Cape Ann in Gloucester, a town about 40 minutes or so from our house.  It feels like it’s a flight away: watching lobster boats with seagulls chasing them early in the morning, seeing the Annisquam lighthouse flashing at night, structuring our days around high and low tide.  It has a bit of an island feel to it.  Really, we are living unstructured days around the tides.

We could have chosen to rent an apartment inland, but we chose something different.  A summer adventure.  After all, today is some day.