MACARONI AND CHEESE

FROM: THE WE-USED-TO-BE-THE-MIDDLE-CLASS COOKBOOK

The first time I served my family Macaroni and Cheese you might find this amusing my youngest son said What’s this Mom? And pushed it away never having seen Macaroni and Cheese before let alone tasting it and not knowing that this was what poor people ate and now that his parents were no longer middle-class there would be a lot more Macaroni and Cheese dinners in his five-year-old future.

The first time I served it I cried yes I did. I served it on a Tuesday when there were no more leftovers not wanting to give up roast beef on Sundays some things are sacred. I served it carried it on a silver service tea-tray a wedding gift from Bud’s great-aunt the one with the money left to cancer research and we ate it at the dining room table not the kitchen table sometimes you have to be brave.

I served a nice little salad with it too and even put the ketchup in a small cut-glass bowl because ketchup bottles on the table are dreadful. The milk too went into a pretty glass pitcher not the milk carton on the table no never the carton. But finally it was Macaroni and Cheese for dinner and I cried not boo hoo but hot squinty tears when Bud said pass the salad and pouted yes he did I could tell that hurt pouty look of his he was thinking not even a strip of bacon for godsake.

The trouble was I had never made Macaroni and Cheese before and who would I mean ever want to? I had tried a complicated recipe since I pride myself on my ability to read books do sums choose colours but what I didn’t know was that this Macaroni and Cheese called for oh my god a milk sauce. And the other thing I didn’t know was that with a milk sauce the milk has to be added slowly mother’s told me since. How was I to know? The sauce was lumpy oh no lumpy sauce so that bits of uncooked white yes cancer-causing bleached white flour would come away in our mouths. My mouth, Bud’s hurt pouty mouth, Jason Jeremy Jasper’s round pink trusting mouths sucking on lumpy Macaroni and Cheese. Like sawdust said Bud it’s good said Jason Jeremy. Goo said Jasper.

But Bud but Bud all Bud could do was pout sniff pout sniff then snort This looks like barf he said yes he did like barf. It’s true I wailed like barf Cathy Grant serves her family barf from a silver service tea-tray cut-glass bowl pretty pitcher at the dining room table and oh what’s to become of us?

I’m sorry so sorry I said Macaroni and Cheese is not ever is never ever the thing to feed an upwardly mobile white Caucasian male used to Coq au Vin Waldorf Salad Chocolate Mousse lying about all day now reading spy novels not looking for Engineer work any work. Don’t be mad I should never have done it slap my hand Cathy Cathy naughty Cathy make something interesting with crackers vacuum bags kitty litter god knows I’ve tried hard to economize. Every magazine knows this for the truth I have them all Chatelaine Women’s Own Family Circle Western Living Ladies Digest tasty tempting morsels for pennies for nothing. Yes there’s Africa I should be thankful but the magazines don’t help too many olives pimentos kiwi fruit mushroom soup min-mallows cost too much.

Nevertheless if only there was a cookbook for people like us for the newly poor rambling around in our good lives with not a cent to spend at dollar-forty-nine day not even one piece of lint. If only there was a cookbook to help those of us who used to be middle-class and who are now god help us out of work the nouveau poor and having to this whole lesser life adjust.

To the whole idea of budget. Can’t can’t can’t spend like we used to. Teach old dogs new tricks like making budget a state of mind now that shopping as a way of life has cruelly ended oh it’s going going gone.

Surely there must be a book about it something for smart up-to-date women like me yes I am in no need to be falsely modest. I read books do sums choose colours. Well well well. How to make hamburger casseroles for instance that don’t taste like sawdust goo milk sauce don’t taste like brown rice dry Third World bland. Yes I’m thankful. But show me point the way to cook healthy cook cheap cook very interestingly amusingly on pennies next to nothing. Make my husband smile oh make Bud smile.

I grieve yes I do for some handy little book which could point the way without getting weird getting religious. Something I could put with pride on my kitchen counter something fun. Nice pictures. Could pass around show Joan show Vicky Gail Jane Pauline the latest thing. Mother too Aunt Bee.

Some way there’s got to be some way I can go on looking like Cathy Grant that Bud can go on looking like Bud Grant on the outside. Some way I can fill us up with Regular instead of Super as it were till Bud gets work does something.

Clunk. Clunk. What if he doesn’t? What if finally after all it comes down to desperate Macaroni and Cheese on the best china probably sold. What if what if that’s all that happens before I die some horrible lumpy milk sauce death with bits of unmelted cheese what everyone knows poor people eat. Of my own making. You make your own Macaroni and Cheese you lie in it. But never Kraft Dinner. No never some things are principles are sacred. Never ever serve that I’d sooner die not even as a joke. Oh what is to become of us?

I could heaven forbid get a job work get liberated drive a tractor sell jewelry sell clothes minimum wage. Jason Jeremy Jasper’s mother a working person poor. Read books do sums choose colours for a fee by the hour? Bud forever reading Helen MacInnes John Le Carré. Furious face to the end to find out who did it.

To me? What if we start eating in our undershirts picking our teeth with matchbook covers wearing old grey wool gloves without fingers? Pick over bargain basement bins looking for something cheery yellow polyester? God forbid polyester. And Jason Jeremy Jasper turning dirty out of control eventually into mean adolescents causing social workers school counsellors juvenile judges to impose on us. Impose. Down to one car sell the house pitch a tent. No rent a welfare basement one-bedroom suite raining all the time spots on the rug.

Become less than middle-class less than average. All this life wading that wide wonderful road in middle centre between heady glitter and dirt on your face disgrace. All this life pushed off the shoulder nevertheless falling having been pushed by statistical restraint. Falling like Alice and no How-To Books in sight no good solid formulas pointing the way to be un-middle-class. How to adjust with style same on the outside no one need know how to have Bud smile again oh have Bud smile. What’s to become of us? Nothing other than this whine my god we’re run out of pennies run out. Of ideas there’s no other way to be just the middle way no other worthwhile proper way to be no way up except lottery every way down. And terrible out. We’re out. Fallen angel oh my god I’m going to start crying really cry and never stop amusing no?