Happiness is a Great Mac-N-Cheese!
Met a client for lunch today at a little gem of a restaurant in Tremont (a ‘comeback’ region of Cleveland) called Lucky’s Cafe.
I’ve had many meetings at this location over the past year, but they’ve always been “meet for coffee” events, so my experience of Lucky’s is as a coffee shop — with a great patio in the summer.
Today was my first lunch meeting at the place. I knew as soon as I looked at the menu what I was going to order — the macaroni and cheese is legendary, plus I’ve got a warm spot for comfort food.
But I have to tell you, I was completely unprepared for how UTTERLY FANTASTIC a plain old dish like macaroni and cheese can become in the hands of a food artistan.
This was not ‘just’ a variation on comfort food. It was decadent. It was the very definition of Creamy. It was a macaroni and cheese Dessert. It was a ‘dive in and swim around in it’ entree. It was a little bit of bubbling cheese heaven on a plate. It was a Stop-The-Conversation-So-I-Can-Experience-Sensory-Pleasure dish.
Did I mention it was really good?
And that the side of homemade applesauce was just the perfect thickness, with a hint of cinnamon?
Ironically, just before the entrees arrived, my client and I were discussing the distinction between pleasure (fleeting) and happiness (more enduring). So the question becomes, can macaroni and cheese create true happiness?
Well, I’m willing to go back to Lucky’s Cafe to find out!
(from their menu)
Baked Mac-N-Cheese
Cheddar, Brie, Parmesan, And Mozzarella Cheeses, Baked With Pasta And Cream, Topped With Brioche Bread Crumbs.
Served With Housemade Apple Sauce.
Jim’s Dark Chocolate Peppermint Fudge
By popular demand:
Jim’s Dark Chocolate Peppermint Fudge
Making the Fudge
Put 4-5 candy canes into a plastic bag. Bang with a hammer till in small pieces. Set aside.
In non-stick saucepan, mix the following over low/med heat:
- 1 lb bag confectioner’s sugar
- ½ cup powdered cocoa – Hershey’s Special Dark is wonderful. If you can’t get Hershey’s try to use dark chocolate, dutch process cocoa
- 6 Tablespoons butter (3./4 of a stick — margarine also works)
- 4 Tbl milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ tsp salt
Heat over low/medium heat, stirring constantly until JUST starts to boil. Mixture will be dark and silky.
Remove from heat. Pour in crushed candy canes. Fold into mixture, and immediately pour into a buttered 9×9 inch pan. Let cool, then refrigerate a couple hours. Once set, can remove from fridge.
Storing the Fudge
Remove and cut into 1 X 1” squares. It’s very rich. Keep in sealed container. Hide from strangers. Maybe even hide it from yourself, as you’ll find yourself eating a piece every time you walk thru the kitchen…..
Eating the Fudge
Oh, sure, you can just pop a square of fudge in your mouth, chew and swallow. But where’s the joy in that?! Here are my favorite ways to enjoy it:
- Take a single square of the fudge, and bite it in half. Let the fudge lay on your tongue. As it melts, press it up against the roof of your mouth and let your tongue bathe in the sugary-grainy smooth chocolatey-ness of it. Close your eyes and breathe in the wonderful, chocolately sensuality of the fudge. Be one with the fudge. Ommmmm.
- Sit down with a steaming cup of hot coffee, freshly brewed (I make mine strong, with a french press). Sip of coffee, pop fudge into warm mouth. As the fudge melts, sip gently on the coffee and let the coffee/chocolate combo swirl smoothly down your throat. Do not try to speak — it will ruin the moment.
- Try it with a short mug of Trader Joe’s Dark Sipping Chocolate. Follow same process as with coffee, but be warned — this option is not for the weak! You must have a strong tolerance for dark chocolate-ness. Have a glass of ice water nearby, in case someone needs to toss on you to bring you out of your ecstasy.
Enjoy the guilty pleasure!
Happiness is Chocolate + Mint
While in Costa Rica, I picked up a package of Chiclets Fusion gum — a luscious blend of chocolate and mint. After consuming the last piece of my stash today, I turned to the web to find out where I might find more. Alas, it appears this gum flavor is only sold in Latin America. However, I did stumble across this commercial for Fusion, which perfectly captures the mint and chocolate experience (21 seconds).
Warning — sensuality and chocolate flow freely here!
Does the Spanish-speaking world know how to advertise gum, or what?!
I may just have to return to Costa Rica to pick up some more…. 
Happiness is a Warm Towel
My wife and I recently completed a “remodel on a budget” on our bathroom. With minimal investment — new towel holders, a couple of shelves, a new rug, and some spray paint — we converted from a blue & mauve color scheme to a bold purple & white, which was a pretty dramatic transformation.
But by far the best part was that we hung a towel rack and clothes hook in a new position on the wall just above the electric baseboard heater.
Yesterday morning I popped outside to clear off the cars and shovel the driveway. In moments, I was frozen to the core; it was -5 (that’s 5 degrees BELOW zero!), and that cold got into my bones. I shivered my way into the shower and when I came out I grabbed my towel — my WARM towel.
It felt SOOOO good!
Then I took down the WARM slacks and WARM shirt from their hangers on the wall and slipped into them.
Ahhhhh!
I experienced a rare moment of sensory pleasure. Pure pleasure, happiness in cotton.
Happiness is, truly, a warm towel!
Chocolate Speaks Louder Than Words
So, I get a package in the mail from a Happiness Coaching client. No idea what’s in it. I open the box and… it’s full of Chocolate! A RAINBOW of Lake Champlain chocolates.
The coolest part: The logo on the side of the bars. I dunno if you can see it on your screen — it reads, “Let Chocolate Change Your World”
No note.
Chocolate, you see, speaks louder than words!
Confessions of a Cinematic Two-Timer
<If, dear reader, you believe me to be a perfect human being who never does anything inappropriate… please stop reading now. I don’t want to tarnish your image of me.>
For the rest of you, I have a confession to make. Yes, at the risk of being picked up by the Cinema Police, I confess that this past weekend my wife and I did something that we’ve not done since we were poor and in college — we double dipped.
It wasn’t planned. We did it on the spur of the moment, and were ready to give ourselves up at any moment. Truly!
On Saturday evening we bought tickets to see Doubt. By the way, a VERY powerful movie… and one that will have you, at the end, debating what actually happened. More on that in a later post….
Anyway, we exited the theater to hit the restrooms and then, as we headed down the hallway to the exits, we noticed a lot of people entering the theater for Seven Pounds, the new Will Smith release. Like most of you, I’m sure, we have a limited movie budget — there’s only so much time, and so many dollars we are willing to invest on new releases. Because we’d rated several other films as “must see” over the holidays, Seven Pounds had been moved to our “see it on video next year” list.
Still, it is Will Smith… and we were a bit curious…. so we said, hey, let’s just pop our heads in and check it out, just to get a feel for it…. (our first mistake…)
We entered the theater just as the previews were starting, and the place was less than half full, so we just took a seat on the side (our second mistake…), fully intending to exit if the place got full. It never did. And before we knew it, the movie had started, we were completely sucked in, and BAM, just like that we became cinematic two-timers.
I know, I know… it was wrong.
And we both felt appropriately wicked.
And we did spend a few moments locked in guilt, justifying our actions (“we spent 25 bucks on tickets and popcorn…”).
But I gotta tell, you our net emotional return was… happiness. Yep. In the emotional stew of Guilt + desire + curiosity + pleasure, what rose to the top was the pleasure — the short-lived, we’ll-take-it-when-we-can-get-it form of happiness.
Guilty pleasures.
Happiness, the BOOK!
The 13 Principles of Happiness