Sunday

Nostalgia


This is the only brand of long macaroni you can buy here in Eastern Canada!

When I make macaroni and cheese I always use long macaroni. I hope it never disappears from the shelves because for some reason it tastes much better than those silly little elbows.

I learned to make my macaroni this way back in the 'Sixties - yes, that's the 1960s, nearly 60 years ago, when I was working as a translator at the head office of Robin Hood Flour Mills here in Montreal. It was located in the Town of Mount Royal Shopping Centre, and there was only one place to eat lunch and that was Murray's Restaurant, right in the little strip mall.

My recent web searches have shown that most people remember the Murray's chain - they had several branches in this part of the country - for their British desserts, but for me it was the rest of the menu that kept me standing in line to get in day after weekday in spite of the high prices. 

The macaroni and cheese was my absolute favourite, but their cheeseburger was the best in town, their mixed salad with "French" dressing was crunchy and fresh and loaded with veggies, and the vegetable soup was a classic. 

The only way I deviate from Murray's macaroni and cheese is that I sometimes pour it into a baking dish, slice some tomatoes on top, dot with butter and bake until the top begins to turn brown in places. But it's delicious straight out of the pot too.

I have no recipe: I just make a béchamel, add lots of yellow aged cheddar cheese and a pinch of Cayenne pepper and stir this into the cooked macaroni. The secret is to keep the sauce silky by not cooking it after you add the cheese.

As for those desserts, the ones people keep remembering are the Steamed Fruit Pudding with Custard Sauce and the Rice Custard Pudding and I must say both were absolutely top-notch.

To find the recipes, I just googled "Murray's steamed fruit pudding" and there they were.

Bon appétit!