A Mac and Cheese Weekend

You read that title and you're thinking, Laura must have had an amazing weekend, and I did! One of my favorite cousins (Jennifer) was in town, and I saw my friend (Lori)'s band play in a Seattle dive bar. Now I realize this blog is often about the positive (cause whats more positive than mac and cheese) and none of the negative, and this post is going to be a little different because one experience was better than the other.
I slightly cheeted (haha, get it, like cheese....never mind) and we begin this blog on Thursday which was also St. Patrick's Day and the beginning of March Madness. Having downed an Irish car bomb AND a Guiness before dinner I was sufficiently tipsy, and rather munchy. But food was slow and chicken and dumplings, not exactly munchy fare. BUT Valerie had made up some Kraft macaroni and cheese, wait for it, shells. And I had a couple spoonfuls and in my tipsy haze decided them delicious and wished I was having mac and cheese. The world granted my wish and gave me this mac and cheese weekend.
Saturday night we went to Cafe Nola, which is a restaurant on Bainbridge where we often eat dinner with the family. Its kind of fancy, known for delicious drinks and spectacular service. They just changed over to a spring menu, and lo and behold, there was a Dungeness Crab Mac and Cheese on the menu. I immediately knew I had to order it, surpassing my favorite dish truffle cheese fries and a salad for this pleasing sounding pasta. I was worried before it arrived because I hoped it lived up to the description of a "light cheese sauce," it arrived and I noted that the cheese sauce was indeed light, and I sighed in relief. This was a mistake. The crab was the best part. And it was delicious, don't get me wrong. But the cheese sauce sucked. It was too watery, and too bland. I guess I should have stirred the crab in to give it more flavor, but as it was I ate it off the top, and while it made me love the crab it made me dislike the pasta. There were also peas here I forgot to mention, and they were, forgettable.
BUT
On Sunday night, I ventured to Seattle with Shannon to see Lori's band, Chele's Kitchen, play out in the U District. I was starving, and while my usual U District fare is Indian food from Taste of India, I couldn't wait that long to eat (and Shannon doesn't like Indian food) we instead headed up from the ferry to Von's, a bar that sits right across the street from downtown shopping like Nordstrom and Macy's. I've been here for drinks three times before, once with Mark, Silke, and Emily for drinks and complimentary brownie for my birthday; next with Brooke and Scott for beers; and finally this winter with Jacob for multiple cosmos (good times for all). They have wonderful deals including an always $3.50 martini. BUT they also have a wheel which is spun every half hour indicating different drink specials (thus the multiple good time cosmos, thanks to the $3.50 for cosmos deal). However, I have never had food here. They have a lot of bbq stuff, which sounded soooooo good. And lo and behold they have mac and cheese and it's $4! Why? Because its on this light plates menu. You order up 2 or 3 and they make a meal. Fabulous. So not only did I get a Caesar salad and a pulled pork slider (which was delicious with onion crisps and cheese) I also got a small portion of mac and cheese. It was amazing. It had shells which are an awesome pasta, and gooey cheese melted on top. It had some sort of spice added to it which was to die for. I almost wished I'd had two servings BUT the sandwich was good too, so win win. Consequently they had no good drinks special when I was there (house wine was the special) but we enjoyed a couple beers and went on our way.
Now, what do we learn from this experience? Its that mac and cheese, like life is unpredictable. You never know where you're going to find it, or how good it's going to be. There are so many variations on this seemingly simple dish that I could go on writing this blog forever, I mean there are so many different combinations of noodles and cheese alone, without toppings (spices? crab?) but sometimes what you want is to go home to the same old reliable pasta and cheese.