By Anne Ruisi
What is the ultimate comfort food?
Mashed potatoes and gravy come close, but to many of us, nothing beats macaroni and cheese. The melted cheese in and on top of the casserole stretches out in steaming strings as you scoop a big spoonful onto your plate.
On Nov. 13, Community Grief Support’s junior board will celebrate the South’s ultimate comfort food and welcome its fans to the 5th annual Mac + Cheese Festival.
The festival is part competition, part celebration, according to the organizers. An estimated 3,000-plus festivalgoers will taste versions of macaroni and cheese from Birmingham restaurants, food trucks, caterers, corporate teams and home chefs who are competing.
It’s also a fundraiser for Community Grief Support, the nonprofit organization that offers grief counseling and education at no cost and helps support more than 20 grief loss-specific support groups annually.
“The Mac + Cheese Festival has been a community tradition for the past five years,” said Erin Slaughter, the nonprofit’s events and marketing manager and junior board coordinator. “We decided on an annual mac and cheese festival to represent the comfort that mac and cheese brings, just as Community Grief Support brings comfort to those who are grieving.”
Homey and Exotic Styles Vie for Title
The competition is becoming heated among the 20 or so vendors who will be dishing out samples and vying to win.
“I think we can win because we put Doritos on top of ours,” said Monica Lamm, assistant manager at Soho Social in Homewood.
The restaurant serves an entrée version of Buffalo mac and cheese with fried Buffalo chicken tenders as a signature dish, but she’s not giving away all the secrets of what they’ll be presenting at the festival.
Char Bar 7 at Lane Parke in Mountain Brook is participating for the first time this year, and staff has been “playing around” with ideas, said Sarah DeFilvey, the restaurant’s general manager. That includes discussions about which type of macaroni will hold the cheese sauce best – elbow or cavatappi.
“Cavatappi has lots of nooks and crannies,” DeFilvey noted, but she would not “confirm or deny” which pasta will best carry the sauce for their creation.
Drew Kramer, who owns Battle Axe’s Food Truck with his wife, Sierra, said their mac and cheese entry is “going to be down-home mac and cheese that you grew up with, as grandma made it.”
He talked about the classic dish’s appeal.
“It’s ooey and gooey. You take a bite and see all that cheese. It intrigues people and it’s comfort food,” Kramer said.
Tweaking ingredients, such as by using different cheese or substituting half and half or whipping cream for the milk traditionally used in mac and cheese recipes, can take it to the next level, said Jason Quarles, director of dining services at the University of Montevallo.
“We use half and half or whipping cream and it tastes like what you just paid a lot of money for,” at an upscale restaurant, said Quarles, who is not competing at the festival.
Other vendors expected to compete are Porky’s Pride, Urban Cookhouse, Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ, Hattie B’s Hot Chicken and Café 1918. Red Diamond has signed up, as well as the Fultondale Fire Department, featuring Chief GrillDaddy & The Old Guys.
Competitors said they are happy to support a good cause.
“We got the invitation and we said, ‘Sign us up!’” Lamm said.
It’s also an opportunity to let more people know about their business.
“We can get our name out there a little more and show people what good food tastes like,” Kramer said.
The Mac + Cheese Festival will be a family and pet-friendly event, with live music, a kid’s zone with balloon artists, face painting, crafts and other events. There will also be a local “celebrity” judging panel and other food and beverages for sale on site.
