Please welcome Passionate cook Avery Flynn to the Cafe!
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They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I always figured a more direct route started behind his zipper, but who am I to argue with conventional wisdom. Plus the kitchen is pretty much a foreign land to me, so you might say I’m a little biased.
Lucky for me I know plenty of amazing cooks, one of whom is my mother-in-law. Picture the stereotypical Italian mom from Jersey City and you have my mother-in-law. Along with the accent, she has amazing kitchen skills. Just how amazing? She makes a baked macaroni that could make angels weep and get Hollywood starlets to ditch their diets. It’s cheesy, gooey heaven in a casserole dish topped with breadcrumbs.
A few years ago we’d just settled down for the kind of feast served at an Italian table on any day ending in Y when my mother-in-law dropped the baked macaroni on the kitchen floor. Cheese-covered elbow macaroni went flying. A moan rose from all of us in the dining room. But the true punch to the gut came when the dogs scrambled into the kitchen like the Bumpus dogs in A Christmas Story and gobbled every bit of creamy goodness up in the span of about five heartbeats.
I’m still ticked off at those dogs.
It’s my mother-in-law’s recipe that forms the backbone of Glenda Layton’s spicy baked macaroni and cheese. The dish shows up in every one of the Layton Family Series books, especially in times of trouble. Like all good comfort food, it warms the heart and strengthens the backbone. Of course being from Glenda, it has a bit of spice to it in the form of jalepenos that just like the Layton family matriarch pack a bit of a kick.
Filed Under: Cafe News
Tagged: guest blog, Passionate Cooks
