Macarrones con queso de Pichucalco

To this day, I wonder if I will ever find queso de Pichucalco. Its actual name is queso doble crema, but that’s the name we gifted it, along with the warm memories of my aunt’s dear town. You see, it is essential to my aunt’s mac and cheese recipe, which is nothing like the plain macaroni you will find in a box and can cook for less than 10 minutes.

         No, my aunt’s mac and cheese is the most delicious macarrones con queso you could ever taste because it tastes like home. And it could never take you less than 10 minutes, it is impossible to cook that recipe without adding a spoonful of your heart into it.

         On the surface, you prepare the sauce by mixing tomatoes, a bit of cilantro, onions, media crema y knorr suiza. This is what ordinary eyes would see. But I learned to see the freshness of my aunt’s wisdom in the tomatoes, her persistence in the cilantro–because she never failed to add it to whatever was on her plate at lunch or dinner time, especially any kind of caldo–her wit in the onions, the softness of her hugs in the media crema, and the tiny yellow sparkles of her eyes in the knorr suiza. She would mix it in the blender and then in a medium-sized pot, but she would put all her joy into pressing the button of the blender.

         To a stranger, she would only boil the macaroni in a pot. To me, she would take care of each piece, just as she took care of my mom and her cousins, watching that it wouldn’t spend too much time in the boiling water, that it would become too soft and break. She would tend to the pasta lovingly as she did to her daughters and niece, teaching them as much wisdom as she could to prepare them for the real world. Her delivery would be soft and tender, unlike how unkind the world outside could be, taking care of each piece of pasta with every stir of the pot.

         If you didn’t know her like I did, you’d only think she would mix the pasta with the sauce. To me, she would bring the ingredients together in the stirring of the pot, much like she brought together our family every time she cooked for us.

         To everyone else, she would just spread the queso de Pichucalco all over the pasta. To me, she would crumble it softly between her fingers and distribute it as carefully as she would tie a bow around my cousin’s ponytail, watching not to make the knot too tight, but strong enough so that it would hold in their hair all day.

         She took care of her recipes the way she took care of her family, with love and patience, as if to hold us all in her hands like we were the most precious things. If food was as important to her as her family, how could I ever try to make her recipe without the queso doble crema? How could I ever try to make her recipe without her?