A while back (like about 3 weeks ago) I really didn't feel so good. Of course, as it usually goes it was on a night when my hubby would not be home. I was dragging myself home with the kids in tow all the while knowing that my night would not be restful, but filled with the needs of others.
On arrival home, I dragged myself into the family room and plopped onto my favorite comfy spot and groaned. The oldest asked me what was wrong and I explained. I am sick.
Now Isaac is my nurse. He is a kind hearted soul and the more he grows the more compassionate he is becoming. Even so, I was surprised when he told me that he would help fix dinner. Almost a boyscout, he had helped prepare other meals on campouts with his pack and I knew he could handle the directions. After all, Mac and Cheese in any form just isn't too difficult and it was about all I could handle on this particular night.
So I asked him to boil water, put in the noodles, and then cut up the velveeta and put it aside until we were ready for it. I heard him in the kitchen opening packages. I heard the bubbling of boiling water, drawers sliding and the soft plunk of a knife on a cutting board. I was thankful and very proud.
After al the preparations were done, Isaac went to his room and became absorbed in what ever he does in there, so I decided that I better haul myself off my comfy spot and go see what was happening with the noodles. They were done and it was time to drain off the water.
The first thing I noticed about the noodles was the intense murkiness of the water. I had never seen water so white from boiling macaroni before. I poked around in the pot, but found nothing strange so I decided to go ahead and drain the mac. When I did, I discovered tiny spongy white pieces of SOMETHING stuck to most of the noodles. I stared in disgust. What could this be? I racked my foggy brain, but could think of nothing that would look like this. I gingerly put a little of the substance to my tongue to taste. No taste.
I was certainly baffled so I called my mom. She was baffled too, and couldn't manage to offer anything more than "Could the mac be bad?" and "Do you think it was a wormy thing boiled to oblivion." I shuttered at that since I had already put on tiny part of one of those things in my mouth.
However, it didn't taste like protein, or anything else and we were hungry. What ever it was was no longer alive,(if it ever was alive) so out of a resolve to not think about it any more and a desperation of having nothing else to feed the children without dragging my sick self out to a grocery store, I decided to rinse each piece of mac and then get on with my life. What doesn't kill us will make us stronger, right?
So I rinsed and placed each piece of spongy-free macaroni back in the pan.
My rinsing done, I had all the items ready for the cheese sauce portion of the meal. But, I couldn't find the velveeta anywhere on the kitchen counter. I remembered hearing a knife cutting something,but the evidence was no where to be seen. So I went to find Isaac and see where the velveeta was.
"Isaac," I asked, "Where is the cheese you cut up?"
"Mom," He said, "I put it in the pot with the macaroni."
And suddenly the mystery of my spongy little tastless mess in the kitchen made perfect since. Note to the galley - Don't boil velveeta. It is yucky!
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