Egg Day.

Happy (late) Easter, if you're into that sort of thing.
Or "Egg Day" as my mom adorably said in a text yesterday.
"Egg Day" seemed appropriate, as we did begin our Easter Sunday with very fresh eggs for breakfast, courtesy Easter morning from Lulu & Miranda. Being relatively new chicken owners, every egg is still something to celebrate.
As a half Jewish/half Catholic girl raised in neither faith, I mostly celebrate holidays with food. Not to say that I don't take holidays seriously. I celebrate anything. I am a big fan of any excuse to cook a festive meal, pretty much. Mardi Gras, Saint Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, whatever, bring on the food.
& the rituals. Christmas trees, menorahs, Easter baskets, Mardi Gras costumes.
Upholding traditions in some form is important to me.
I plan on making chopped liver & matzo ball soup this week in honor of my Gramma Bess & Passover. (I celebrate all the Jewish holidays with those things, they make me think of her the most).
Easter I've always been fond of: Spring is something to celebrate, egg dyeing is a nice ritual, & there's something about the Easter myth that appeals to the drama queen in me. Plus, Easter is a holiday where I have traditionally managed to avoid family obligations & spend the day the way I like, at home cooking a good old fashioned Sunday dinner with the person I love.
This is the first Easter in a long time that I haven't had to work, & our first married Easter.
We spent it exactly as I hoped. We ate a delicious breakfast of our own eggs & bacon while listening to some of the truly excellent Christian Country hits of Randy Travis, then we dug in the new garden all day.
We are attempting to clear by hand an about 60x60 foot square of abandoned & totally overgrown garden space.
On this Easter Sunday we tilled two new 45'x4' beds & planted sugar snap peas, yellow beans, French Breakfast & Easter egg radishes, golden beets, & blue potatoes, then dug a cold frame to harden off the kale & Kohlrabi & broccoli & cauliflower seedlings we have started indoors.
I'm really getting to know that pitchfork. I'm pretty proud of the calluses I've gotten on my palms, these last few weeks.
Then we cleaned the chicken coop (yay farm chores!) & hung out laundry on the line (I love finally being able to have a clothesline here!) & other weekends tasks, trash, sweeping, dishes, etc.
So we totally deserved the completely indulgent Easter dinner we had.

Egg Day Dinner 2012.

 Roast Duck marinated overnight in wine, garlic, sage, rosemary, chili peppers, olive oil, & salt & pepper. 
We bought the duck on a Friday night as a weekend impulse & grilled the legs that night, served with curried rice & broccoli. Then marinated the rest of it over Saturday night & roasted it Sunday.
Owen's famous Cheesy Bacon Mashed Potatoes.
I swear that man is insane. One pound of bacon, both ricotta & fresh mozzarella, & 1/2 & 1/2. Into mashed potatoes. I love him.
With some leftover Kale Pesto because I like to eat a green thing & I'm still on the Kale Pesto kick.
Topped with, of course, Duck Gravy.  Huge amounts of Duck Gravy.
God damn I'm glad a married a man whose good with gravy. 
My leftovers for lunch at work were kind of insane. Yeah, I'm just eating my roast duck & cheesy bacon mashed potatoes & duck gravy over here, don't mind me.
I went to bed completely exhausted & satisfied last night. Good food, seeds planted, house & coop clean. 
Right now I'm making a soup from the duck stock. Fridge soup, don't you know it!
I have a huge pile of seeds on hold I'm gonna buy at work tomorrow. There is a whole cleared bed we haven't even touched yet.
I don't mean to always be all Pollyanna on y'all the time here, but mostly, stuff's good. I don't think we have anything real to complain about.
I guess somewhere along the line I've turned into a positive thinker. Or I'm just happy.

Getting In The Thanksgiving Spirit, aka Cranberry Sauce & Stuffing & Gravy.

Well, it will be Thanksgiving the day after tomorrow. After some (hopefully brief) hours in Grocery Hell, I get to pack up my husband & my dog in the car (sorry DustyRose but you are not a good traveler), & drive to Cape Cod to see my family & eat good things.

 Thanksgiving 2010: The Sides, Part Two.

The (homemade by mum, always) cranberry sauce, the stuffing, & the garlicky green beans.

I lied. These sides are important too.

Anyway, I whine & moan a lot, but I'm grateful. Very very grateful, & looking forward to home tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving almost.

Thanksgivings Past & Future.

Apparently I am about a year behind in current events on this blog, as I never finished my drawings from last Thanksgiving.
Well, never say never-I just finished one. I drew this last November, in Jackson, NH, the same house where we spent our honeymoon. 

Thanksgiving 2010: The Sides, Part One. 

aka the MOST important Thanksgiving sides, mashed potatoes & creamed onions. More important than turkey or stuffing (although stuffing is pretty damn important).

Last year was an atypical Thanksgiving, in that Owen & I joined my moms in New Hampshire in a borrowed house in a beautiful place. 

This year is different in that we Diamonds lost a terribly important family member in September & one week later Owen & got married. 

It's a rather emotional holiday, I think for all of us. I can barely even write this, really, so no details. 

This year Thanksgiving will be at home, in Brewster, on Cape Cod, with new family but with a huge absence, too. 

All I meant to say here was, cheers to Thanksgiving (the sacred holiday of EnD), & all it brings.

& Gramma, I'm missing you a lot, everyday, even if I'm not so good at talking about it. But neither were you, really.

Butternut Squash #2: With Homemade Sausage In A Lasagna Thing.

As promised, the skipped #2.

10.27.2011: Butternut Squash Week #2: 

 A sort of lasagna, with alternating layers of thinly sliced butternut squash, homemade spicy pork sausage, crushed red chilis, red sauce, garlic, onions, & boursin, burrata (cream filled mozzarella), & parmesan. Served over pasta.

I just made this up. I like making up lasagna type things, or so I call them, they are usually only lasagnas in the sense that they involve layers (remember bacon as noodles?)

But truly, who doesn't prefer meat noodles to past noodles? 

Basically, it is fun to throw a bunch of different meats & veggies into a cast iron dutch oven & bake them & cover the whole mess with cheese. I made a lovely lasagna last fall with butternut squash & homemade green tomato sauce we had canned from the abundance of green tomatoes we produced in our garden in 2010. My favorite vegetarian main course is a pesto & mashed potato lasagna.

On this particular night, we had butternut squash, of course, & we had the same homemade pork sausage that went into this meal.

No recipe. Just layers layers layers. Use what you have-this a great way to get rid of random grocery items in the fridge in a delicious fashion. 

One of the first things I ever learned to cook & still one of my top three comfort foods (eggplant parm, curry, tuna casserole) was my mom's eggplant parmesan & maybe that's why I like layers of vegetables & meat & cheese & sauce so much.

Thus concludes the The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011. 

I think. I know we never had recipe #7, but once we had power & you could buy groceries again, we moved on. Blame it on the power outage. We do still have squash, so maybe I'll do one more, but no promises, since that week is long over. 

Six out of seven ain't bad, though, right?

Butternut Squash #3: In Thai Green Curry With Chicken.

More with the foods, & the making of them, & the continuation of The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011.  

10.28.2011: Butternut Squash Week #3:

 Thai Green Curry with coconut milk, butternut squash, chicken & our garden thai chilis & lemongrass, over basmati rice.

(Note: I did not skip Butternut Squash #2, I just didn't finish the illustrations in order. Not how I roll, numerical order). 

So, another classic recipe of mine, continuing the theme. Curries, all curries, are very high up there for me when it comes to comfort food.  I cook a curry at least three night a week, & I do it differently every time. I've never added winter squash, but it worked well added to a basic version of my Thai Green Curry.

To start, make rice, to be authentic use jasmine, but we tend to buy rice in 20lb bags so usually just have white basmati & some brown short grain on hand. Roasted a split butternut squash in the oven. In a heavy duty sauce pan, start cooking onions, garlic, & chopped chilis (lucky we grew some beautiful thai chilis in the garden this year) in coconut oil. Add some green thai curry paste (I use this one), some curry powder, chopped lemongrass (which we also grew in the garden & currently still have growing in a pot in our kitchen), fresh chopped ginger root, shrimp paste, sriracha & fish oil. I used about a half of a habanero from our garden too, but adjust the spiciness to taste, obviously. I prefer crazy spicy. Throw in chicken pieces & potatoes, make sure they get thoroughly coated with the coconut oil seasoning mixture. Add two cans of coconut milk, then added chopped pre-roasted butternut squash. Cook until squash pretty much dissolves into the coconut milk, serve over rice, & eat. Perfect. 

Note: many of the ingredients in this curry, & also the basic ingredients of my life, are purchased here, at the International Market in Hadley.  

I have been shopping there for about ten years & even though they still feel they need to warn us about food white people won't like, too fishy, too spicy,  (yet we do), I love it there. 

The true genius of curries is that they are so flexible. I made a decent one with chicken thighs, broccoli, 1/2 & 1/2, various spices, chili peppers & potatoes in a cast iron wok the other night exhausted after a long work day & without grocery shopping & I'd rather eat that than most restaurant food & it took very little time or effort, in fact, it really cheered me up.

There in is the beauty of food. 

This particular curry was delicious, by the way, I definitely recommend the squash addition.

Hurricane Soup. Or Tropical Depression Soup?

See, I promised I'd be back with some actual food! & what better occasion than Hurricane Irene Sunday, here on the East Coast. After days of Hurricane Drama, by yesterday around here it seemed like just about time to give in, purchase provisions (i.e. wine & beer, food & novels), & get ready to stay home. Last night we got prepared by making a giant lentil soup, the purpose of which was to cook as many things in the fridge as possible in case we lost power today (which we didn't, by the way).

8.28.2011: Hurricane (Lentil & Sausage) Soup.

Into the trusty giant white cast iron enamel pot went chicken apple sausage, lentils, onions, garlic, potatoes, ginger, leftover chicken, chicken stock from the same chicken, the last of our garden atomic red & purple haze carrots, & lots of cumin. Since this took a while to cook, while waiting we also consumed the last of the amazing Stop & Shop frozen appetizers we purchased on a recent late night trip, the silly kind where one might by tempted by such items as mac n' cheese triangles & jalapeno poppers. Then we went dancing in the rain.
All in all it's been a pretty good hurricane. My work was delightfully cancelled, & nothing bad happened other than it was kind of anticlimatic I guess.
But it's very cozy here at home, & Owen is brewing beer in the kitchen while I get reacquainted with my blog & listen to Amanda Palmer in our room. We walked the dog over to check out the rather dramatically high Mill River, we addressed the last of our wedding invitations, & we thought it a perfect occasion to drink wine in the afternoon. Even thought the part of my soul that loves storms was secretly looking for a little action, I learned in New Orleans to not play around with hurricanes, so I'm really very happy with how today turned out. Always marry the guy you can spend a perfect hurricane with, that's what I say.

Remember DnD?

I know y’all do. Home of so much past brilliance.
So... last Friday night Jed of Drinking & Drawing fame made a special appearance back in Noho at the EnD kitchen. & Owen, in Jed's honor, made an insane meat concoction. How insane? Well, he started with sausages & bacon in a cast iron skillet, poured the grease into the deep fryer, ground the meat in our trusty meat grinder (a free pile find), battered them in cornmeal, & deep fried them in our trusty deep fryer (a $2 Hospice Shop find).

5.13.2011: Friday the 13th with Jed & Pabst. 

All accompanied by ample PBR, aka the official beer of DnD. (although we do enjoy others). There was dancing, there was the Deuce, there was an after-party, there were the bizarre snacks Jed brought us back from his recent trip to Korea, consumed at 4am. Sounds like DnD.
Since Owen & I have become tame, early rising, stay at home, dog owning people, this night was much needed & appreciated but required some recovery the next day.

5.14.2011: Rainy Saturday Night Dinner.

 Otherwise known as "Recovery Dinner." When you, well ok, I, am rather hungover from a 4am+ kind of night, & then get caught in the rain on a walk with my hound dog, I like to turn to my comfort foods. This time, mashed potatoes were on my mind. Post-rain storm & soaking wet, I mostly wanted to cuddle on the couch with Walty & read trashy novels all night, so I felt like throwing something delicious into my beloved red Le Creuset baking dish & leaving it in the oven for a while. Third source of inspiration? Being in dire need of a vegetable after last night's fried meat fest, also in need of a touch of flavor complexity.
Hence, Miso Chili Ginger Baked Tofu, Cheesy Garlic Mashed Potatoes, & Kale Sauted with Garlic & Cumin Seed.
It was pretty good. EnD, your source for hangover tips. Three cheers to the whole weekend. Jed, come visit again soon.
& Hey everyone, in case you were wondering, it is still raining here...

Hot Dogs & Hound Dogs.

Happy Spring!

A few random images, thoughts, meals, opinions, what have you. 

First, we fairly recently acquired a spectacularly great hound dog, Walt, a red-brown & white spotted coonhound/pointer mix. On Walt's first night here on South Street, we brillantly left a plate of Tator Tots & bacon on the counter, leftover from our nervous "are we getting a dog today?!" breakfast (we had him on hold over night at Dakin to decide. Of course we were getting him.) This moment will always be special to me, because he hadn't shown much post-shelter-experience personality yet, so Walty on his hind legs at the kitchen counter eating bacon & Tator Tots off a plate with huge enthusiasm & a giant grin, was kind of wonderful. A Limoges china plate, no less. Ah dogs. He's a food hound. Remind me to draw him with his face in a 5lb bag of sugar on the couch after being left alone for three minutes.

2.19.11: Walt's First Night. 

They were Price Rite generic Tator Tots, a brief new weakness of ours. But although the Tator Tots were trash food, Price Rite actually rules. Holier than thou co-op shoppers should really check out their produce section. Happily, we are getting really close to the season where we can grow all our own produce again, but the Chicopee Price Rite & their gorgeous & low priced jalapenos & ginger & chard has really helped me through this winter.

On that note, I have a confession. I really am kind of a food snob, in my own way. Let me explain. Although I have my weaknesses (you know, Price Rite generic Tator Tots or Cheeseburger flavored Doritos), I really am against processed food. It's not an indulgence or diet thing, not at all, because I cook everything in bacon grease or chicken fat, but I guess I just like to know my own indulgences, i. e. that chicken fat from the chicken I roasted the other night, not mystery ingredients. If I am going to eat a ton of fat, why not eat straight good slab bacon, not a McDonald's thing? I annoy the hell out of my dear partner, but I really don't like to eat fast food. I like to save money, but a fast food sandwich still costs more than the bacon scraps we sell at work, so whatever. 

However, one night last March, in the grips of New England March depression (when will the snow truly stop! Snow forecasted for this weekend!), like what's happening now, pretty much, my dear boyfriend did convince me to buy a package of hot dogs & we ate this for dinner.

3.11.2010: Hot Dogs, Mac N' Cheese, & Broccoli. 

At that point, we were still using up a case of free expired stupidly organic mac n' cheese any way we could (don't worry, we threw out the cheese packet, & made our own cream sauce. That's essential). But it was a glum March day & we were walking by the Mill River, & Owen said "Hot Dogs & Mac & Cheese for dinner!!!" & I agreed. That's love. 

I won on the broccoli though. Broccoli in a cream sauce. Always good. As good as hot dogs seemed to me when I was five? 

Ask Walt. 

Piles Of Noodles, PIles Of Opinions.

Welcome to my controversial world of noodles. Linguine, fettuccine, elbow macaroni, whatvever, noodles have also been one of my favorite things to draw. Long long long before I had a food blog I was painting piles of noodles everywhere. For example, this classic painting of mine: 

"219", Acrylic on canvas, 2005

So, visually,  I am all about the noodles. Gastronomically, they are actually not my first go to comfort food, or at the least not the classic Italian style pasta variety. I am a chickpea curry girl all the way, or spicy beef & soba. Milkshakes & onion rings, I'm all over that. I believe I have mentioned my opinion on the general American trend of paying way too much money for a large plate of crappy pasta, & eating it in a mall, probably. Why not eat cheap food with some complexity & flavor, a bowl of pho or steamed pork bun? & We all know my Grampa Diamond's strong opinions on red sauce.  I guess it's a family thing. 

That said, there is more to do with a box of fettuccine than dump some jar of sauce from the grocery store over it .  

2.10.10: Homemade Red Sauce, With Bacon, Chicken, & Veggies. 

 3.2.10: Angel Hair, In White Wine & Butter, With Summer Squash, Thyme & Mushrooms. 

I guess behind my ranting & raving ala Anthony Bourdain about the Olive Garden (we actually saw him do this that night) is that both these meals weren't particularly creative, didn't cost much money, hardly took any real time or effort & were delicious. Learn to cook your own food, rather than throwing away money on crappy American chain restaurants, please. Seriously, learn to cook, y'all, at least enough to cook some veggies in butter & olive oil, chop some garlic & onions, & boil water.
This is the lesson in the noodles.
(It is still very much winter, although it is March, I am therefore apparently still cranky). 

A Snowy Night In January, Remembering Chanukah.

We are having some sort of ridiculous blizzard in Western Massachusetts, & can be considered officially snowed in here on South Street. Welcome to horrible Winter 2011, where it snows every minute. Snowed in with a glass of wine, I find myself examining my sketchbook, which has been tragically neglected lately. There I found this:

First Night Of Chanukah 2010, Liver & Latkes.

Back on the first of December, it was also a shitty night, weather-wise, although back then we didn't realize quite what we were in for. But it was rainy & chilly & blustery, & Owen unexpectedly had the night off, & it was Chanukah. You can't have a holiday without a special meal, right? (At least I can't). We were kind of broke per usual & I hadn't planned anything, so leaving work that afternoon I channeled my Gramma Bess & bought some liver, onions, & potatoes, & we stopped off on the way home for a big bottle of Manischewitz. Hence, a 133 South Chanukah celebration of homemade chopped liver, latkes, & terrible kosher wine, eaten around the kitchen table after lighting the first candle. Liver reminds me of my Gramma, although her chopped liver came from Sol's Deli in new Bedford & her latkes came from a box & she would have made a brisket, too. There is a balance to recreating a tradition, keeping some things the same as you remember but making your own memories too. I think the Liz, Owen , & DustyRose family is off to a good start, we have certainly made homemade latkes & special Chanukah meals a memorable occasion. So enjoy the snowstorm, everyone, & remember being snowed in for days = much eating & drawing.

Cali Part Two: Grilled Cheeses at Old Spanish Missions, Burger Arguments, & BACON.

So Diamond Daughters in the great state of California, continued.

In which Gramma drives us to Riverside, & we get lost & end up at the city limits with the auto parts stores, & we eventually arrive at the Mission Inn, see some parrots, & eat grilled cheeses in Mum's (allegedly, Gramma tells these stories sometimes) favorite lunch spot, Simple Simon's.

Grilled Cheeses In Old Spanish California, After Being Lost In The Urban California Desert.

At some later point, we had this burger conflict. First, Grampa Diamond is self-admittedly terrible at grilling. Only burgers he is good at. This makes him a burger crazy person. I, as an adult, have formed my own burger preferences, & mine include Hellman's mayonnaise as a must & Sriracha as yes yes please & crazy additions as hells yeah what have you got? As you can see here. Sooooooo...I wanted my mayonnaise, some chopped jalapenos, & a sliced perfect avocado & whoah was I shot down. Oh families. PEOPLE FROM BROCKTON, MA DO NOT PUT FING AVOCADOS ON MEAT. END OF STORY. I forget this.

(Note, Ali, a burger girl is anyone is, did agree with him, so I give his taste buds the benefit of the doubt).

Anyway, I present,

Grampa's "Perfect" Burger.

To comfort us from all this terrible family burger conflict, Saturday morning breakfast. The most essential one, the Platonic ideal of breakfast, why bacon smells good like nothing else to me, & why I can never be a vegetarian.

Breakfast with Bob

(Fried Eggs, Bacon, Thomas' English Muffins, Always & Forever).

Coming up: We find our perfect Liz & Ali restaurant after almost dying of depression in a giant California mall, we purchase sparkly discounted things while drinking smoothies, have a more odd than even usual for us family evening, & a moving & memorable in emotional terms but so upsettingly bad foodwise Anthony Bourdain would cry Macaroni Grill experience. Seafood Linguine. Shudder. All coming up next. Stay Tuned.

Cali Part One: 3000 Miles From Cheezits to Red Snapper

Some things have happened since my last long ago post, mostly spring & summer & hence gardening & nightswimming & long evenings outside & much less internet. Also some family happenings, & what says family history memory the most?

Yup, food (which shapes our lives, etc.).

My dear sister & I flew on a plane to California in October.

Being us, we ate things. Lots of things.

Through the Sky to Dallas & LA.

Airports, airplanes, drive-thrus, & our Gramparents' House: Cheezits in the air, Starbucks' Iced Caramel Macchiatos, a Blimpie's BLT sub in Dallas, "El Potato Burrito" @ Miguel's Jr, Grampa's Famous Stuffed Shells back on Eureka Street.

So we knew we were home, in that sense of being at home in one's own past,

Grampa's Roast Beef & Sides, AKA The Taste Of My ChildHood.

The meal that I thought of first when we planned the journey. The smell that still means "FOOD" to me. Roast beef covered in pepper & onions, whipped mashed potatoes with tons of butter, canned peas, steamed carrots.

I think this meal is why I like to eat, why I learned to cook. So I could produce this feeling myself. I still can't cook this right though. Better maybe, but not right.

A classic shopping adventure with Gramma, to a (at least to me) fabulously insane California mall restaurant, The Elephant Bar.

The Elephant Bar, where two girls from Massachusetts meet Americana + Sushi.

Seriously. We split a tempura shrimp roll, & then I had ahi tuna over brown rice with seaweed salad & smoked tofu, & Ali enjoyed mac n' cheese & coconut shrimp. All presented in a completely over the top fashion with oddly low lighting as befits a fancy/trashy mall restaurant. According to Gramma, the bar was also an excellent place to meet men. We unfortunately did not get a chance to check this out theory.

Although the Elephant Bar was a tough act to follow & Although I am 32 & Ali is 27 we will always be "the kids" to our grandparents, one night they actually let us cook dinner. This was a very difficult trip in many ways while it was also perfectly wonderful in others, & in one of our worst early moments we found a grocery store we liked, the delightful Henry's, & it saved everything. Shows what food, & the option to purchase the food you want, will do to save a situation. We took many, many a trip to Henry's to enjoy the lovely cashiers who did not look at us & our outfits like we were crazy freaks like pretty much everyone else in Corona, & buy very cheap but delicious California white wines to drink in the jacuzzi & avocados & tomatillos & chilis & lemons & grapefruits & other amazing California things. What can I say? We like to eat in our family. Those first bags of groceries we brought home from Henry's were a turning point.

On this particular night: Red Snapper, with Asparagus roasted with garlic & olive oil, Baked Potatoes, & Salad with excellent California tomatoes & bermuda onions.

I will admit I caved under pressure so this is my mom's classic recipe for baked fish with butter & bread crumbs (my Grampa's favorite, always), usually as we are from Cape Cod done with cod. & I never make baked potatoes & had to actually ask Ali how to do it. But Oh well I wanted Grampa to like it. At least I snuck in the asparagus, kind of controversial in that house as not a pea or a carrot.

Us two transplanted Massachusetts girls spent ten days in our second childhood home, & as you have noticed, it was complicated. Stayed tuned for the rest, Family & Food & Feeling, here we go.

& Red Convertibles! & Shopping! & Pumpkin Smoothies!

Origin Recipes, Part One: Tuna Casserole.

The cover of this month's Bon Appetit advertises tuna casserole, eggplant parmesan, & chicken curry, which happen to be the first three important things that I learned to cook, & that taught me to love to cook. Looking at the cover, I started thinking, y'know, in the vein of food memories...& why Bon Appetit knows me so well, & what it all means...

To start, we go way back, way way back, to like me at ten or eleven, playing with the kitchen, with...Tuna Casserole...

Begin with a classic roux, butter & flour, then add 1/2 & 1/2 & white wine for a cream sauce. I also add chopped garlic at this stage.

(yes, you made already have noticed this is definitely a different version then the white trash classic, but's that why this is so good, do with it what you like).

To the sauce, add grated emmenthaler swiss cheese (my preference), frozen peas, chopped roma tomatoes, & a can of solid white tuna. Do that cool thing with melted butter & some crushed saltines or ritz crackers (the best way to go). Drain noodles (I generally choice elbows or shells but this time it was pappardelle).

NOTE: like any great recipe, this one lends itself perfectly to variations. Add whatever the hell cheese, veggies, crackers...etc, that you like. Don't even add tuna. See if I care. But be warned, my mom once added chopped canned clams instead of tuna, & at least to an eight year old, that shit is GROSS.
This is a messy fun kind of dinner. Pour yourself a glass of that cheap white wine you were cooking with & let your cat enjoy what's left in the can of tuna.
Combine sauce with noodles, cover with crushed cracker mixture, & more grated chesse, & baked for about an hour, uncovered for the last ten minutes so you get a nice crunchy top.
BEST LEFTOVERS EVER, especially with sriracha in your room late night with your kitten after dancing.

this is memory food,

Mum cooking this in our apartment on Orchard Street in New Bedford when I was little, me starting cooking as a teenager on Seamans Lane in Brewster, cooking this for myself in my first apartment on Medway Street in Providence at seventeen, Burns cooking me the Mississipi version with chips & sour cream on the night George W. Bush was (sort of) elected the first time in 1999, cooking this on Burns' last night in San Francisco on Cabrillo Street at twenty-two, & then eating the leftovers cold myself & wondering how I was gonna survive alone, at twenty-three on Burgundy Street in New Orleans that first winter when it finally got sort of chilly, at twenty-seven in the Prospect Street apartment in Noho when I started eating meat/fish again, & most recently for Owen in our house on South Street, at thirty-one, 11.23.2009.

Oh Yeah, this meal is a deal breaker with me. You are a vegetarian or think canned tuna is gross, I probably won't fall in love with you. Just sayin'.

Next Up: Eggplant Parmesan.