Feelings about Truffles.

The fungus-y kind, not the generally-poorly-executed chocolate kind.

For dinner, I had leftovers from lunch. Lunch being pasta with truffle oil, portabella mushrooms, parm, breadcrumbs, and a slightly skimpy layer of "Wisconsin cheese sauce".

It looked much prettier at lunch. I was stuck in office park suburbia, and Noodles & Company was one of the better options. Yay Colorado entrepreneurs!

Colorado entrepreneurs are classy. They do things like make truffled mac n' cheese. I have a sense of humor, and like truffles, so I proceeded to bewilder the counter staff by actually ordering it. He was at first confused, and tried to sign me up for their bacon mac, but I persisted.

The embarrassing punch line is that it was actually pretty delicious.

I've never understood the weird fussiness that surrounds truffledom. Truffles absolutely stink. Supply, demand, blah blah blah, that's why they're pricey. But, in a culinary culture that reveres subtlety and minimalism as a sign of craft and refinement and maturity, that truffles are the quintessential food snob food is really odd. Truffles basically taste like umami and metal, with an acrid, mouth-filling burnt cheese note that's weirdly, impossibly nostalgic.

So, I think it's really awesome that Noodles has democratized truffle flavors. Truffles are so pungent, we should really think of it like garlic, not some fancy, inaccessible crap. Noodles' dish is at least as good as the (admittedly kind of sketchy) white truffle pasta I ate in Florence, for $20 less. I'll be eating it again sometime. Hopefully with a straight face.

Lazy Yuppie Crack

For dinner, I had some mac n' cheese from Annie's.

I initially planned on eating it with an arugula salad, but laziness and a determination to consume as many delicious carbs as possible subverted the arugula. (Maybe next time jog after dinner?)

It was quite tasty- I miss the neon orange of Kraft just a little bit, but eating it makes me feel gross. There are very few foods that, due to the complete lack of any redeeming nutritive qualities, just *feel* disgusting to consume, but that's one of them for me. The Annie's is perfect because it is as healthy as mac n' cheese can get- 100% whole wheat, without a weird texture or flavor, and decent-tasting cheese powder that's readily traceable to actual cheese. It was a little salty, but whatever- it's not like I had to make a bechamel or anything. Sometimes lazy is ok.

To drink, I tried a glass of crappy California moscato, on the McDonald's theory of wine pairing, but in reverse- fancy mac n' cheese with crass commercial wine. I also thought the sweetness of the moscato would play off the slight sweetness of the mac n' cheese. It was okay. The moscato has a slight acidity, and isn't as overwhelmingly floral as ones I've had before. But the pairing wasn't great, and I'd probably rather buy another bottle of last week's white lambrusco over this.

Lunch at Home

Today for lunch, I had some mac n' cheese and half of a squash.

The mac n' cheese was pretty foul, despite being Annie's. I prefer her white cheddar and shells, but they take forever to make, so I settled for the nasty microwaveable version. I see Annie's makes a whole-wheat version, so in the future I'll eat that instead. I have no guilt about eating anything, regardless of how bad it is for me, as long as it's real food. But white flour is gross.

The squash was much better. I prefer roasting, but opted to microwave today because I was starving. I've recently discovered sweet dumpling squashes, and they are my new favorite. Very substantial, almost meaty, with buttery flavors between pumpkin and acorn squash. They're also adorable!

Mac n' Cheese

For dinner, I had macaroni and cheese, some bok choy, and a glass of red wine.

I was feeling supremely lazy, so this is not a tale of mornay sauce or hunting down cheap Emmenthaler (one major reason I have yet to make Bouchon's mac n' cheese). It is a tale of Easy Mac for yuppies:


At least the box is much cuter than Kraft's. There's probably something wrong with me describing my pasta purchase to Jon as "Annie's- the lady with the bunnies and shit". But I jest. I heart Annie's and her cute little bunny. Annie's Vermont white cheddar and shells is the pinnacle of pre-packaged cheesy goodness. However, the shells take forever to cook, so I decided to try their microwaveable version instead.


It's really good. By good, I mean that it tastes exactly like Kraft, minus the chalky, viscous tang of scary thickeners and colorants. All the ingredients were recognizable, if not entirely good for you- flour, cheese, whey, corn starch... I'm excited, because I occasionally have vicious mac n' cheese cravings, only to eat a bowl or two of Kraft and then get grossed out by all the weird things it contains. Annie's means I can enjoy my cheesy, starchy goodness again.

I was still just a little embarrassed by my craving for simple carbs. So I got some baby bok choy to pretend my meal was healthy. I ate it raw, because I was feeling lazy. It was strangely good with the mac n' cheese- the leaves taste a little like broccoli without being overpowering (I kind of hate raw broccoli), and the stems had a great crunchy, watery texture.

It also gave me a chance to test out my cheapskate salad spinner ($2.99 at Target). I just tried to find it online, and apparently it's too crappy to merit space on their website. The lid usually flies off mid-spin, and the crappy plastic is not dishwasher-safe, but it's cheap and mostly effective. Especially considering their next-cheapest is something like $20. My rice washer was a perfectly fine substitute (and it gets my vote for most versatile obscure cooking implement- I LOVE that thing), but I couldn't pass it up for under $3.

The wine was decent- it's from Lafite's vineyard in Chile, bottled specifically for Whole Foods. It was about $10, but I really wanted a decent Cab Sauv, so I splurged. It smells amazing- really full-bodied, lots of raspberry, very fruity- but it disappoints a bit on taste. The alcohol content (14%), while not high, comes through way more than it should. It's nowhere near as bad as heavily alcoholic California wines, but it really lacks body and substance compared with the way it smells. I'd drink it again, but there are better things out there- a nice Malbec or Tempranillo would be more substantial.