Tag Mac and cheese

Hospitals, dinner party, friends and games, and happy endings?

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I haven’t had much time this week to eat, or rest, or even go to the gym, so I haven’t had time to read books, report on podcasts, or blog. And that’s a shame because I’ve seen some silver linings recently.

My friend in the hospital is doing well, and the staff on the cardiac floor seemed appropriately mortified at how her case was mishandled on Sunday. That doesn’t fix the long-term damage to her heart, but at least now she has the team to move her care forward in the future. And our coworkers have paraded into her room literally one after another, including her direct supervisor who turned up before she had emerged from the ICU. That makes me proud to be part of the team with whom I work.

She’s coming home from the hospital later today.

I visited my friend on Thursday evening, and again Friday after work. The Teenager had a dinner party and game night planned for the evening. My job was to stop and augment the alcohol offerings. I still need half-and-half after running out last week. Three trips to the store have yielded no such milk product. I have had tea. I have had terrible coffee at work. I have drunk my peppermint tea black. And I have resorted to, with great desperation, coffee with two percent milk. My father preferred his coffee with milk, and it’s something I just can’t adjust to.

I stopped at the new Weis market in Bethlehem near the hospital, purchased several single-serve-type bottles of various wines and a cold six pack of Sweet Baby Jesus chocolate peanut butter porter. I love a good porter or stout and DuClaw’s Sweet Baby Jesus is a solid one, though not as smooth as Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout. That is my favorite.

I also grabbed a half gallon of Weis-branded ultra pasteurized half and half, dated March 23. Let me skip ahead to this morning and alert you that my half and half, after I freshly popped the seal, was spoiled. But, at the time of my arrival home, I felt like a successful warrior queen.

The Lovely Teenager and I received a package from Stitch Fix yesterday with our Freestyle goodies. You can see the unboxing here: (The Teen is wearing a Stitch Fix sweater from a recent fix.)

The Teenager invited a couple over for dinner and invited more friends to join us for Ransom Notes, a blend of Cards Against Humanity and a magnetic poetry kit. I didn’t take any photos of the evening, as I was distracted laughing, enjoying a beer, and socializing, something that has not happened nearly as much as it should. The Teenager expertly prepped and executed a menu of homemade mac and cheese, steak, and air-fried asparagus, with box brownies for dessert. Knowing one of our guests was vegetarian (and relieved he was not vegan), she prepared one very large standard mac and cheese, based on the recipe from the never-let-you-down Betty Crocker Cookbook. But being the carnivore and bacon whore she is, she made a second, smaller mac and cheese with bacon.

When your bird is distressed by all the commotion in the house, you show her what is happening. Photo by Joan Zachary.

Conversation flowed freely. The Teenager’s father arrived next, bearing the essentials for rum and Cokes. Our artist friend Maryann Riker followed with some Yellow Tail. Somehow Uno became the first game as choice as poor Maryann had never played this classic.

Brilliant photographer Joan Zachary arrived next with her partner, who immediately made friends with The Teenager’s extra long cat Oz. Joan joined us for a round of Cards Against Humanity, and did impressively well for her first time playing. I did not win a single black card. But I laughed my ass off.

And it was Uno we returned to to end the night, never quite reaching into the box for Ransom Notes. I guess that means we may need to host another game night.

Also, my cat Fog has been sleeping with The Teenager against his will. But they seem to be developing a relationship. Meanwhile, foster tripod Louise has permanently become my snuggle buddy, sleeping in my arms every night.

Fog
Tripod Louise

Review: End of Hello Fresh week two and random junk we tried

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

My daughter often stops at Grocery Outlet in part because of their “rainbow Coke program” where you can rummage through lose cans of soda and mix and match flavors for 25 cents each. They have weird food, good deals, and allow us to try things on which we wouldn’t usually splurge.

Tonight we made the Cheetos Jalapeño Macaroni and Cheese. Now, hands down, without question, my absolute favorite ultra-processed boxed macaroni and cheese product is Wegmans house brand Spirals and Cheese dinner, which I often used to get on sale for 33 cents a box.

This hard larger than average noodles that once prepared very quickly absorbed all the sauce. It tasted exactly like jalapeño cheetos. Except you didn’t have to chew so much. I ate a bowl, and the spice developed on the roof of my mouth versus my tongue. I added a can of tuna and had another bowl. A two-serving box was 79 cents.

Other Random Products

  • Fried Oreos: finally tried them at Sheetz. Gooey in the middle. Enjoyed them but was disappointed by the end product because I never realized how much of the allure of Oreos was in the crunch factor.
  • Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Hershey Kisses: very smooth strawberry flavor and I didn’t expect the crunchy bits. Honestly, between 20 flavors of Oreos and constantly rotating flavors of Hershey Kisses, my taste buds are getting burnt out. How many different flavors of potato chips and Mountain Dew do Americans really need?
  • Tropical Swedish Fish: like the iconic red flavor of Swedish Fish that vaguely resembles cherry, these tropical Swedish fish vaguely resemble something familiar but the flavors listed on the box aren’t even all flavors (passion fruit, pina colada, beachy punch and tropical island). They are weird and the colors are muted and off-putting.
  • Dunkin’s Peach Lemonade Refresher: possible one of the most over sweetened items I have ever tasted. Even teenager #1 who likes sweet things couldn’t drink it. So I suggested she blend it with some diet ginger ale we had in the house. That she loved.

And as promised— a brief update on Hello Fresh.

Meals, for four servings, cost about $35 each, when including shipping. The meals are amazingly curated and the recipes amazing. This week I tried to pick things my daughter would like but that I wouldn’t normally buy or don’t often take the time to make.

The Turkey meat loaves with mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts and mushroom sauce were a hit. But the shrimp Thai salad bombed. I don’t care for shrimp, poor teenager #1 struggled to eat it all. And didn’t. And it turned out I didn’t notice when I ordered it that the based of the salad was arugula. And the teen hates arugula. So I ate massive vegetarian salads for dinner for three days. They were scrumptious but I don’t want to eat arugula again for a while.

We downsized our box from three meals to two as it is Sunday, another box ships tomorrow and we still have steak from last week to make.

So while we are eating better, we are spending a whole lot of money, struggling to find time to be in the kitchen and then stressing over getting the meals prepared before they go bad or another box shows up.

Rainbow Mac and Cheese and my thoughts on privilege and racism

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I am saddened that in the 21st century this nation has not made more progress into equality and basic needs for all people.

Having visited different countries in the industrialized and in the developing world, having studied the history of colonialism and prejudice in Francophone Africa, the basic reality that as humans we continue to judge each other and care for ourselves and our own whole ignoring the pain of our neighbors pains me.

I have studied France’s relationship with its colonial history and its institutionalized prejudice against Muslims as a critical theory model for what I see with American imperialism and what I see with our own world legacy of hatred.

Race always enters into these studies because the African American experience shares a lot of commonalities with the French of Muslim Descent community; neither population asked to be enslaved by an empire. Yet, both populations are now belittled and mistrusted by their historical populations.

And both populations are judged and denied opportunities based on their appearance, on something genetic.

It’s so sad.

It’s 2020, America. We have outdated social classes, corrupted government systems, unsustainable consumption, unattainable educational opportunities, a capitalistic drive that values the work over the person, and a healthcare system that threatens our financial wellbeing more than it helps.

So it’s hard.

And I am fortunate to be white. But I am a woman, and I am a woman with a disability, so I understand the lens of judgment. I live every day wondering if I will be judged inferior or incapable because I walk a little funny.

But at least I don’t have to live every day in fear that I may be perceived as dangerous, or manipulated into a situation where I am suddenly an enemy merely because of the color of my skin. I won’t be killed for being dark skinned and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or near the wrong people.

It’s so sad that some of the best, most helpful people I know have to live in this reality.

That Black men have to swallow their fear.

That Black parents have to hope their sons come home.

That people with power

  • whether the power of law (the criminal justice system which favors the white),
  • the power of occupation and authority (police officers, prison guards),
  • the power of messaging (advertising, media, even entertainment)
  • or the power of mass control (our government and the systems perpetuated by it)

can continue this nonsense of us against them is a classic battle of the “haves” and the “have nots.” It’s really time you listened to your mama and started to share.

Anyway, on a much lighter note, I made macaroni and cheese for the teenager.

I used rigatoni and made a sauce of mostly cheddar and 1% milk, with a chunk of Monterey Jack and a chunk of dill havarti.

I put the rest of my fresh spinach in there, put some smoked paprika, purple peppercorns, and smoked provolone on top and it was amazing.

I called it rainbow macaroni and cheese which got me thinking of the larger racial and prejudice issues.

And that made me sad.

But I did have a very heartening conversation with the teenager today. She’s cleaning her room because, as she told me, she needs to get her act together to be able to help me more.