Low grade food porn

Not so much because the food was poor, nor because it wasn't worth doing, but rather it is a really small change to an everyday thing; a sort of magnified comfort food.

I like Kraft Dinner. Maia's family calls it "cardboard" and with that name it has a very specific meaning; made "sloppy", with just milk, no butter and eaten with a very wet tuna fish salad (made with lots of celery and chopped pickle spears, heavy on the vinegar).

I like to play with mine boxed mac and cheese (and I am picky about it, if I'm not going to make the really heavy mid-western style mac and cheese I grew up with, I'll make Kraft, and that's about it). I'll add curry, or cumin, or some other spices, and use at least as much butter as they call for, and often add some cream to the milk.

I have seen the us of truffles and other expensive inclusions, but if I'm going to do that I probably want to have more control over the cheese aspect.

So the other night I wanted something filling and easy. So I started the water on the boil, chopped a bit of onion and a bratwurst and let it heat. While that was going on I put a small skillet on the fire and browned the butter. To keep it from going to black butter, I turned off the fire and added the milk. So I had scaled milk (which the butter kept from forming a skin, though the caseins did join.

It made for a really rich undernote.