Emeril is visiting Jon and Kate and they're making Chili Mac.

Just thought that had to be mentioned.

It was goulash in my household, always with elbow macaroni. My gradpa would only eat pasta if it was elbow or spaghetti because anything else was too Italian. Weirdly, I am half Italian, but raised in a with him, I naturaly cook like an Italian American.

It may have included paprika in my house, as I vaguely remember it tasting much more like a Manwhich than macaroni with meat sauce.

Also, this was mae by my grandma, who was an awful, awful Depression era + clinically depressed cook. Although my favorite comfort food is still creamed tuna on toast with mashed potatoes and peas, which my mom hates. Her favorite is "Salmon Loaf".

You guys are making me sad for food.

Though my mother was by no means a good cook. Overcooked everything. Thank god I allegedly had a fish allergy.

My comfort foods are NM green chile standards, which my mother did not really cook (dad not much of a cook; when on sabbatical without us, he subsisted on spaghetti sauce from a jar and noodles, bean burritos and salad.) I always got it from local hole in the walls, enchilada dinner fundraisers or friends' houses. Mmm, red and green pork posoles, green enchiladas... But when I'm thinking of family-familiar foods, I always come back to our camping/travelling dinners: ramen with frozen vegs (peas, corn, cubed carrots) and tuna. Maybe cheese if we hadn't eaten all the cheese with wheatstone crackers already. Smelling of bluet gas. And hot or cold orange Tang, depending on the weather. When I make the ramen with tuna, I swear I can still smell the bluet.

That's how I feel about oatmeal. It's camping food, to eaten out of a thin plastic bowl that you wrap your hands around to warm up as you eat. Eating it inside out of a china bowl never quite feels right.

Salmon loaf is of the yum.

Also found to my surprise that I like canned mackerel fish burgers, since (unlike canned salmon) I don't like canned mackerel straight. However rinse, mix with cornmeal, milk and egg, then bake or fry in olive oil on top of the stove it is quite tasty, and has no canned mackerel taste remaining, though I can't guarantee what the flavor would be like to supertasters. The secret that was passed to me was not to use spices, no mustard no garlic, not even salt and pepper. Supposedly any of these would bring back the mackerel flavor. I've never violated this rule on grounds of not changing what works, though I suspect it is nonsense. Birth of a superstition?

This 9/80 work schedule is killer. I'm just exhausted.

Ran into lori on lab today, though. Makes it feel homier.

Also, I learned a new french word, today, and wanted to try it out on Megan. It is BOF!

And that is the only french I know.

Bof? eta AH!

It's nice to see you, Allyson!

So Vegas was good. I love Mandalay Bay so much. Even with a toddler in tow. We got to swim, we had the lazy river, we did not get to participate in the wave pool. We ate at our favorite hotel for food, even though we couldn't sit at the oyster bar as we had a little one in tow.

Also got to see a friend from high school (both K and I did, actually). So that part was good too.

I have 2 more weeks of school and my grades are already turned in. It's making it hard to motivate.