Striving for Perfection (One Box of Mac and Cheese at a Time)

Nobody's perfect. Not even me.

Over the years I've made a lot of boxes of macaroni and cheese. You're probably thinking, "Oh, sure, we've all made a lot of macaroni and cheese." But what I'm telling you is I've made A LOT of macaroni and cheese! I was single until I was 40 years old, and as a guy living by myself I probably made macaroni and cheese at least once a week for twenty years. And now that I'm a father of four, I've got three kids who love mac and cheese and request it all the time. (But not all four kids, because there's always got to be that one who makes things a bit more difficult.)

What I'm saying is I've got more experience making macaroni and cheese than just about anyone around. So, you would think that by now I would be able to make a perfect box of macaroni and cheese every single time.

Nope. Almost every time at least one little thing will go wrong.

You're probably thinking, "Come on, how hard can it be to make a perfect box of macaroni and cheese?" It's more difficult than you might imagine. Just keeping all of the noodles together can be problematic. Noodles can get away in several steps of the process, such as:

*Dumping the macaroni from the box to the pot.-- Sometimes, when pouring the dry noodles from the box to the pot a noodle or two might miss the pan, or you might get a noodle that sticks to the box.

*Stirring the macaroni in the pot.-- Every once in a while, while trying to stir the noodles one or two of them might escape from the pot.

Noodles are escaping!

 *Draining the water from the noodles.-- When draining the water from the noodles, sometimes a noodle or two will spill out. Or maybe the colander you are using has openings that are big enough that a noodle or two can squeeze through.

Of course, there's more that can go wrong besides noodles getting away. You could undercook the noodles. You could overcook the noodles. You could put in too much milk, leaving your macaroni and cheese a little soupy. You could put in not enough milk, leaving your macaroni and cheese a little dry. Or, probably the most common problem, the cheese sauce won't mix in quite right, leaving random glops of bright orange powder mixed into your macaroni and cheese.

Perfection isn't easy.

But hey, who says we have to be perfect every time? Sometimes just trying to be perfect is good enough. Steph Curry is widely regarded as the best shooter in the NBA, but he has only had one season in his career where he made more than half of his shots. No baseball player has gotten hits on more than four out of ten tries for an entire season since Ted Williams in 1941. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees set a record for percentage of passes completed this season, but he still threw incompletions on more than one out of every four throws.

Perfection isn't easy. But, we don't have to be perfect every time. If we make a mistake, we just have to move on and try again.

And hey, if you add enough cheese, everything will turn out just fine.