Macaroni

Jason Cichonski is only 24 years old, so perhaps it is no surprise that a microwaved bowl of Kraft "Easy Mac" (with a side of cut-up hot dogs) is still his favorite after-work meal. It's what Cichonski does with macaroni and cheese at his day job - as chef de cuisine of Lacroix at the Rittenhouse - that might be a little startling to comfort-food purists. And I'm not even talking about the decadent orzo macaroni with house-smoked salmon, rosemary-steeped brie cream, and brown butter panko bread crumbs that has been one of Lacroix's biggest lunch hits.

Dear Polly: Read the recent letter concerning the leftover macaroni salad made with mayonnaise. The reader warmed the dish up, and her mayonnaise-hating husband loved it. Everyone has always raved over the macaroni and cheese casserole that I've made for years. I usually never reveal the secret to them unless they insist on the recipe, which includes the addition of 1/2 cup of mayonnaise; it truly enhances the flavor. When I taste other macaroni and cheese dishes without the mayonnaise, it always seems something is missing.

Some foods are so simple in their construction, so ordinary in their form and so central to our collective culinary unconscious that we come to resent having to cook them. Instead we leave the cooking to the big food manufacturers, and in so doing we lose the knowledge that marinara sauce was not born in a jar, nor does macaroni and cheese simply appear full-blown in its own oven-to-table microwaveable container. By bowing to corporate chefs to cook our favorite dishes we relegate them to the world of commodities.

In our search for truly comforting mac and cheese, the one worth-the-effort recipe that can hold its own against the conven-ience/cost/satisfaction standard set by Kraft's, we zeroed in on what the food mags and publishing industry are touting. And the winner is? For absolute fuzzy-slipper comfort, Patti LaBelle's five-cheese extravaganza. But Martha Stewart's creamy uptown version, calling for Gruyere and white cheddar, came in a surprising second. The Blue Ribbon country version relies on milk and American cheese and won kid semi-approval.

The 1990s clearly are going to be one of those decades in which informal entertaining will be chic. Mashed potatoes and pot roast will be as suitable for company as tuna carpaccio with truffled oil. Nevertheless, I would have thought there'd be a line drawn somewhere, and that the somewhere would probably be macaroni and cheese. Filling and flavorful though it may be, and rather nice looking, too, when you come to think of it, this staple, child-pleasing casserole is generally seen as beyond informal.

Dozens of harried customers were lined up in a neighborhood grocery store in the center of the capital yesterday, buying up every piece of pasta in sight. "Girls! The vermicelli is running out!" hollered a shop assistant, warning two cashiers to quit selling coupons for the noodles she was furiously scooping into paper bags. Only a few days before, pasta, flour and kasha - a common barley cereal - were readily available in Moscow shops. Indeed, they were among the few foods not in short supply here.

Familiar, filling and satisfying, macaroni and cheese ranks high on the comfort-food scale. Though the pasta tubes known as macaroni were first imported from Italy more than 200 years ago, baking them with cheese sauce became popular in America only in the 19th century. This childhood classic is one of the best-known pasta dishes, appearing regularly on home-style menus. Though meatless, traditional macaroni and cheese is loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol. Cream sauces are full of butter, milk or cream, and other high-fat dairy products.

Most anything tastes good folded into the richness of macaroni and cheese, but in the mushroom mecca of Kennett Square, where the fungus is as fresh as it gets, there is a special irresistibility to a gooey slice of macaroni whose lily-shaped pasta tubes are studded with roasted maitakes, shiitakes, and oyster mushrooms. Add an indulgent Mornay sauce with good cheddar and gruyère, plus a little spark of Dijon mustard, and it is almost as if Talula's Table fused the macaroni casserole with a particularly sublime cream of mushroom soup, topped, of course, with crunchy garlic bread crumbs.

1 stick butter 1/4 cup flour 1/2quart heavy cream 3/4 cup Fontina cheese 3/4 cup Gruyere Cheese 3/4 cup Swiss cheese 1 1/2 tablespoons onion powder 1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 1 pound macaroni Salt and pepper to taste   1. To make roux, melt one stick of butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add flour and whisk until combined and color starts to darken; set aside to cool.

Meatless pasta dishes don't have to be high in fat and calories. Traditionally, they get their protein from eggs and cheese instead of meat - baked macaroni and cheese, for example. A heavy combination of high-fat hard cheeses with lots of eggs and milk (or cream) can add up to a double dose of excess calories and cholesterol. So we go beyond "macaroni and cheese" with light ideas for main-course pasta dishes without added meat, poultry or fish. This dish can be made with a no- cholesterol egg substitute if you prefer: BAKED MACARONI WITH CHEDDAR AND RICOTTA 8 ounces uncooked elbow macaroni 5 eggs (or equivalent egg substitute, thawed)

Most anything tastes good folded into the richness of macaroni and cheese, but in the mushroom mecca of Kennett Square, where the fungus is as fresh as it gets, there is a special irresistibility to a gooey slice of macaroni whose lily-shaped pasta tubes are studded with roasted maitakes, shiitakes, and oyster mushrooms. Add an indulgent Mornay sauce with good cheddar and gruyère, plus a little spark of Dijon mustard, and it is almost as if Talula's Table fused the macaroni casserole with a particularly sublime cream of mushroom soup, topped, of course, with crunchy garlic bread crumbs.

For garlic bread crumbs (makes more than needed for recipe): 12-ounce loaf of (sourdough or baguette) day-old bread, sliced. ½ cup garlic oil For mushrooms: 3 cups fresh mixed mushrooms (oysters, maitakes, shiitakes, beech, king oysters) 3 tablespoons olive oil, for roasting mushrooms For macaroni: 5 cups milk ½ large yellow onion, chopped, about 1 cup 2 garlic cloves, smashed with the flat side of a knife, skin left on 4 parsley sprigs 4 fresh oregano or marjoram sprigs 3 fresh thyme sprigs 3 bay leaves 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard Salt and pepper 2 tablespoons softened butter (for buttering dish)

1 stick butter 1/4 cup flour 1/2quart heavy cream 3/4 cup Fontina cheese 3/4 cup Gruyere Cheese 3/4 cup Swiss cheese 1 1/2 tablespoons onion powder 1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 1 pound macaroni Salt and pepper to taste   1. To make roux, melt one stick of butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add flour and whisk until combined and color starts to darken; set aside to cool.

Pasta has been very, very good for the financial health of Philadelphia Macaroni Co. So good that Campbell Soup Co. , a longtime customer, said it agreed to sell an Ohio pasta factory to the family-owned Philadelphia Macaroni. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in mid-July, were not disclosed. But Philadelphia Macaroni, which has pasta factories in Warminster; Grand Forks, N.D.; and Spokane, Wash., doesn't intend to operate the German Village Products plant in Wauseon, Ohio.

Thousands of state employees, elected officials from Gov. Rendell on down, and guests eat at the glass-enclosed Capitol cafeteria each week. They go for the convenience, the schmoozing, and the ever-popular macaroni and cheese. But little did they know that other diners were living under the green-domed Capitol roof, taking advantage of the cafeteria pantry after hours: mice, untold numbers of them. The discovery the week before Christmas of a rodent infestation and 16 other health-code violations in the cafeteria prompted a flurry of responses: its immediate closing, government agency finger-pointing, and calls for tougher food-safety laws.

On the screen set up off center court at the Reading Terminal Market, the last of the Mohicans were having their say Saturday evening, giving accounts of the old days - the tremble in the rafters when trains still ran above, the buckets kept handy to accommodate the leaky roof, razzing one another, albeit gently, about the drinkability of fresh buttermilk. The stars mingled with the assemblage - tuxedoed Domenic Spataro, 92, bent but unbowed, who has cut back to six days a week at the sandwich stand now run by his son; the iconic butcher, Harry Ochs, just turning 80, with 62 years of meat-cutting under his belt; and, among others, Carol and Willman Spawn, customers since their first date here decades before their hair turned gray.

When I was young, one of my favorite meals was a dish my mother called "creation. " It consisted of ground beef, noodles, and whatever she had in the pantry. I didn't realize it then, but it was also a way Mom fed a family of six on a budget. She could make her "creation" for about $1.50. I look back now and marvel at her ingenuity. My idea of a cheap dinner is a box of macaroni and cheese. And there was my mother, Pat DeHaven, concocting her own inexpensive meal and turning it into a family favorite.

Jason Cichonski is only 24 years old, so perhaps it is no surprise that a microwaved bowl of Kraft "Easy Mac" (with a side of cut-up hot dogs) is still his favorite after-work meal. It's what Cichonski does with macaroni and cheese at his day job - as chef de cuisine of Lacroix at the Rittenhouse - that might be a little startling to comfort-food purists. And I'm not even talking about the decadent orzo macaroni with house-smoked salmon, rosemary-steeped brie cream, and brown butter panko bread crumbs that has been one of Lacroix's biggest lunch hits.

Gladwyne businessman Todd Carmichael has become the first American to cross Antarctica to the South Pole alone, on foot and without support, according to his support team in the United States. In his journey of 39 days, Carmichael, 45, also became one of only a handful of people to complete the more than 700-mile trek solo, slogging more than 18 miles a day across the Earth's most unforgiving terrain, climbing from sea level to nearly 10,000 feet. He arrived at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station at 4:10 p.m. EST yesterday 97 years and one week after polar explorer Roald Amundsen first claimed the achievement.

Craig LaBan: Good afternoon, my hungry friends, and welcome back to the Philly food chat that puts the sizzle in your summer dining. Sorry about my unexpected absence from the chat last week - I was covering the Fancy Food Show in New York. It's a fun, but overwhelming event, what with five miles of olive oils, cheese, truffled butters, jams, miracle waters and salted caramels lining the Jacob Javitz Center. Still, I found some great things to nibble on, like a chile-spiced pineapple marmalade from Mauritius (made by Poivre d'Or)