Comfort Food, Flapping in the Breeze

There is a nation to the north of the United States. It is called Canada.

Its products include maple syrup, hockey, and Canadian Content, aka can-con.

By law, a minimum 35% of all songs played on every Canadian radio station must be content deemed officially Canadian by government regulators. It is a patriotic impulse to protect the writers, musicians, and producers of the frozen north against hot-blooded American cultural imperialism. Unfortunately, the can-con law has had some tragic effects, most notably the insidious rise of Celine Dion.

On the bright side, it means that novelty numbers by Canadian bands get a lot of airplay. Take for example this hit by the thrash metal band Annihilator.

Macaroni maniac
a cheddar cheese heart attack
I love, I love, I love, I love
KRAF DINNER
Boiling water
I can't wait
It's getting hotter
it feels so great
Macaroni maniac
a cheddar cheese heart attack
I love, I love, I love, I love
KRAF DINNER

Wily thrash-metal Canucks, see how they use a typo to protect themselves from lawsuits by aggro American conglomerate Kraft Foods?

For the record, my moniker of macaroni maniac doesn't just come from this song. It actually comes from being half of a couple that (let me warn you, this is so cute it is disgusting) uses the pet names of Macaroni and Cheese.

Disgusting is of course endemic to macaroni and cheese. How better to describe the eerie nuclear-orange contents of the cheese packet that comes in every box?.

My family ate so much mac and cheese out of the box, we created little tricks like sprinkling bread crumbs (also out of a box, or rather out of a Progresso cardboard cylinder) on top. These pseudo-culinary innovations were always heralded with the proclamation, Makes it more of a meal.

The Cheese's mother once said about marriage, "It is not always easy, but it is always satisfying." Macaroni and cheese out of the box is exactly the opposite — not always satisfying, but always easy.

In point of fact, I would rate our (non-marital) relationship pretty satisfying. And as a krafty noodle, I find the macaroni and cheese theme a great inspiration. For our tenth anniversary of living in sin, I made these rings.
The Cheese is similarly inspired. A couple years back, he made us our own crest.

I liked it so much I said we should put it on a flag. I said it like 6,743 times, over the course of nearly two years. Finally in December we got around to finding a flag maker who could make it for us. It's a bit disturbing outsourcing fabrication of your romantic impulses, but we wanted to entrust the mission to trained professionals.



Actual trained flag professional,
Elmer's Flags,
Portland, Oregon






They called last week to say it was ready (apparently the flag making industry is a little slow moving). So now we are proudly flying the Macaroni and Cheese flag. It's a nice ritual, putting it out in the morning and taking it down at night. An ensign announcing we are awake, and the house is open for business. Makes it more of an embassy.

But please don't take it as overly jingoistic. It's not like we'll have macncheez-con playing inside 35% of the time. No one can listen to that much Annihilator.