Cheese (and mac)

Don't be fooled by this unfortunate mug shot, taken as quickly as I could before ripping off my oven mitts and into this dish. This buttery, crunchy, creamy, decadent mac and cheese was just...transcendent. And would you expect anything less from a Martha Stewart recipe?

It all started with me and the cheese section at Whole Foods (perhaps that will be the title of a future memoir). I noticed a few blocks of cheddar nestled alongside one another. Who knew there were so many types of cheddar? And fontina? And gruyere? On sale? Before I knew it, it was 11pm, I had bits of Cabot extra-sharp clinging to my hair, cheese-grating-induced finger cramps, and an enormous mound of grated cheese on my countertop.

The thing about mac and cheese is that it's hard to screw up, unless you pansy out and decide to go puritan: "Do I really need to put four pounds of cheese in this?" "Maybe I can use olive oil instead of butter to toast the breadcrumbs." Friends, no. This is a balls-to-the-wall mac and cheese. So unwrap that stick of butter, and then unwrap another. (And then maybe hit that spinning class tomorrow morning.)

The only real tricky part of the mac and cheese is making the white bechamel sauce (flour + butter + teensy bit of milk) which you have to stir and stir and stir until smooth and silky. Why, you ask? Bechamel sauce is the base for the creamy, cheesy sauce that will eventually cling to your tiny macaronis and sing to your heart. It's what unites the mac and the cheese, marrying them in the most perfect union.

Once you've made your bechamel, next comes the fun part: melting down all that cheese you grated.

Aww, yeah. It looks pretty innocuous, but that right there is four pounds of cheese melted down. No regrets here, baby.

The mac part of the mac and cheese is almost an afterthought--toss those little guys into this sauce, stir, throw into a (buttered!!) pan, and coat with (buttered!) breadcrumbs. Bake until golden--the color of sunshine and angels' halos.

When I was in France, my host mother would often serve ridiculous cheesy dishes like this one with a tiny salad (sometimes even just ripping the leaves off of a head of iceberg lettuce and tossing with olive oil and balsamic vinegar). I liked to think of those little salads as legitimizing whatever quiche or cheese souffle or potato gratin we were digging into. So serve this with a green salad (mine featured toasted pecans, beets, baby mixed greens, and goat cheese).

Then, if you're me, you'll have to roll right into bed. And bring the leftovers to work the next day.