"NewsAndNotes" news and stories

Last night, NPR's News and Notes featured a brief but serious piece about macaroni and cheese by Los Angeles-based columnist and actor Joseph C. Phillips. Phillips seems truly distressed, and rightly so, that his kids have been served a powdery, imitation mac and cheese at a local restaurant. He uses this experience of what mac and cheese isn't as a springboard for talking about what mac and cheese is, and, more specifically, what it is in the African American community. "This is the storytelling," Phillips says of the guarded recipes and mystique that surround really good homemade examples of the dish. He then goes on to share a few of his favorite mac and cheese-related stories. His own recipe is available on his website, here. The photo is of Sarah Gim's liveblogged mac and cheese from last winter.