While we all love the ultra creamy, cheesy version of macaroni and cheese casseroles made with a custard base (preferred) or white sauce, the one that I offer here turns out an extra crispy crust made with saltine cracker crumbs.
Admittedly I’ve served this up to mixed reviews. One was in a recipe article I wrote several years ago in the Boston Globe’s food pages. I got a terse email from the editor saying it was rejected by their test kitchen who thought it was too dry. Too much New England muster there.
Another time I served it to an old friend of mine who’s since passed (not from my cooking!). And he loved it, saying it was the best mac and cheese. He had a pedigree in the food world since his son is none other than TV cooking personality Andrew Zimmern whose love of cooked bugs brought him to fame. He visited his father Bob in Portland often, and his favorite spot of all in Maine–besides lobster joints– is Fore Street restaurant.
Bob was a voracious cook, rarely eating out but rather enjoying his own food more. He’d clip (as in the old days) recipes from magazines and newspapers and put them in what he called a tickler file, a holdover from his days as an advertising executive for Gray Advertising. He was friends with James Beard also since Bob in his younger adult years lived in Greenwich Village, and they were neighbors. Though in all the years I knew Bob he never once mentioned going to Sunday brunch at James Beard’s house, a story his son Andrew brags about “going with his father.” We were friends for years in New York and he followed us here when we moved to Maine.
Crisp and cheesy mac and cheese
