The best macaroni and cheese

Before I start writing up this recipe, I'd just like to take a moment to tell you a bit about it. This is a macaroni and cheese recipe, obviously. That doesn't really convey its glory though. Let's put it this way instead: the recipe you're about to read contains 4 1/2 cups of cheese, has white pasta sauce poured over it, and has cornflakes crunched on top. You heard me, cornflakes.

I'm assuming that at this point you're sufficiently tantalized by the thought of this food that you would agree to give me, at minimum, a controlling ownership stake in your first two or three children to be able to taste it. Instead of that, however, you're about to get it for free on some internet page with a profanity-and-bean-based title. This is called the Miracle of User-Generated Content, and incredibly serious people devote military-grade brain cells to writing pompous essays about it.

In other words, this isn't just a macaroni and cheese recipe. It's a shining embodiment of a 21st century cultural phenomenon. Damn.

Macaroni and Cheese: The Right Way
Ingredients:

• ~3 cups of elbow macaroni (9-10 oz. dry, if you have a scale)
• 3 tbsp. grated onion
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 3/8 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 4.5 cups shredded cheese (I use a mix of mozzerella, swiss, and cheddar, with a little asiago thrown in for zest. You can mix it up if you want.)
• 3 cups thin white sauce (see below)
• 1.5 tbsp. butter

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Cook mac according to package. Drain.
3. Prepare thin white sauce according to directions below.
4. Mix the onions, salt, pepper, and cheese together into what will henceforth be referred to as the "cheese muck of deliciousness" (CMOD).
5. Place 1/2 the mac in an ungreased 3 qt. casserole dish.
6. Cover with 1/2 the cheese muck of deliciousness.
7. Add second half of the mac.
8. Cover with remaining half of the CMOD.
9. Pour the white sauce over the whole thing. Distribute somewhat evenly.
10. Dot with butter.
11. Crunch cornflakes on top. Realize that crushing a handful of cornflakes is possibly the most satisfying sensation there is, and that we could probably end war if we could somehow get every major world leader to do this when they wake up in the morning.
12. Cover (with the top of the dish if you have that, with aluminum foil otherwise). Bake for 30 min. covered, then uncover and bake for an additional 15 min.
13. Cool and serve. Swear undying vengeance against the false macaroni and cheese prophets who convinced America that orange goo in any way resembles the real item. Realize that these people are almost certainly the leading candidates for "what's wrong with America" and are almost solely responsible for the moral decline of our culture.*

Thin White Sauce"Like a white sauce, but thinner!" --Wm. Shakespeare

Makes 3 cups, the amount required above.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups milk
• 3 tbsp. butter
• ~2 tbsp. flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/8 tsp pepper

Steps:

1. Melt butter over low heat
2. Blend in dry ingredients
3. Cook until smooth
4. Stir in milk, turn up heat
5. Heat to boiling, stirring, boil and stir for 1 min.

There you have it--the best macaroni and cheese (I don't make this boast idly). There's nothing I can say that will top that, so I'll just leave you with a link to a cartoon of a bear who is not able to understand cheese as well as he might wish.

*"But Glenn Beck!" you exclaim. Do you think I hadn't thought of this, people? Don't you realize that there wouldn't be a Glenn Beck if we all ate this macaroni and cheese regularly?!