Macaroni and cheese is a timeless institution. Whether it traces its origins to the pastas of Italy or the epicenter of Goulash in modern-day Hungary, it is now here.
It is here, it is everywhere, all ages adore it, and--most importantly--it's full of opportunity.
A recent Reddit thread asked for input from the creative minds of the internet's far reaches. Noodle artists came from far and wide to offer their artistic visions for the basic mac and cheese canvas.
The list came together to offer a wonderful menu of new options for the future of your mac and cheese making. Various meats, spices, preparation methods, and oddball ingredients were all covered.
The thread was an illustration of crowd-sourcing at its finest.
Redditor_2017 asked, "What do you add to enhance Mac and Cheese?"
Necessity Drives Innovation
"Picky eaters in my house have caused much experimentation with this already wonderful meal."
"Some upgrades:"
- "Any protein. Sausages, tuna, turkey, and so on."
- "Try adding small amount of other cheeses to the mixing step. Velveeta for cheap. Parmesean for flavor and texture. Try Gouda for smoky. Sure, you could just add more cheddar (mild for additional cheesy flavor, medium for subtle uptick, sharp for a lot more cheesy bang)."
- "Hot sauce. There are endless flavor variations here."
- "I've heard cream corn is good to add, but I'm not that crazy."
Fats and Lipids, Baby
"Bacon and a little tiny bit of truffle oil."
"My friends and I had a mac'n'cheese competition night a few years back. We all made our own versions of loaded mac'n'cheese and everyone + significant others voted on their favorite. These were my favorite additions."
"PS most of the people in my friend group are at least slightly lactose-intolerant, but we persevered."
-- nwcoconut
Covers All the Bases
"I like to combine smoked Gouda + old sharp cheddar + mozzarella. You get the strong flavor, melted stringy cheese goodness and some smoked flavor that is always welcomed." -- moy-moi
"I like sharp cheddar, Parmesan, and goat cheese, plus I replace the butter with mascarpone. Sometimes I add some fresh, finely chopped rosemary, too." -- Rubinev
Trifecta
"Bacon, garlic salt and cayenne pepper." -- GrilledStuffedDragon
"Can interchange bacon with chicken and jalapeño or any peppers will do. The college meal would be hot dogs" -- Shi**yLiftingTips
"garlic salt and pepper automatically make any dish better. it is known" -- Pyrle
Mustard From Out of Nowhere
"Gruyere, paprika, cayenne, ground mustard." -- 01kaj10
"I made this exact mixture the first time I made homemade Mac and cheese. It's delicious. I just threw it all together without any recipe thinking 'this might be good.' "
"If I make boxed Mac and cheese now I always throw in some smoked paprika and fresh ground pepper. It tastes so much better." -- pocketchange2247
"Yes. Also English mustard and mustard seeds. I put mustard seeds in way too many foods" -- Lonelysock2
Ideal Leftover Collaboration
"Mac n cheese and baked brown beans are DELICIOUS together. Nothing fancy, just Kraft and Bush's"
"I also love when the stars align and I have leftover mac n cheese AND leftover taco meat. They are so good mixed together!"
-- peon2
Protein Boosts
"Chorizo is the best addition I've come across so far, a friend suggested it a little while back and it's quickly become my favorite enhancement!"
"Tuna has also been pretty good, I'll usually put in a can and it mixes in pretty well."
-- Anjodu
The Right Tools
"Well I'm not sure if this is going to count, but instead of using a stove I use my pellet smoker. If you have a smoker I 100% encourage you to try this!" -- BlueCollarComedyTour
"I will for sure be giving this a try." -- Thechaser45
"Bro, do you smoke?" -- Genocide_Fan
Very Enthusiastic About Bread Crumbs
"BREAD CRUMBS" -- picklesupreme
"Onion powder works pretty well too, plus some freshly grated cheese (as opposed to pre packaged grated cheese)" -- picklesupreme
"Hol' up" -- Crumbs04
All the Food Groups
"Peas. Because peas are awesome and I can lie to myself about now unhealthy my meal really is" -- SaltyChickenDip
"Oh my gosh all the indulgent answers had kind of shamed me out of saying this! So I'm glad there's someone else out there!" -- Manatee3232
"I came here to find somebody else commenting 'peas.' Peas and tuna all the way." -- Niles4Me
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People Who Have Witnessed Someone Die In Front Of Them Share Their Experiences
Reddit user T_A_C_T_B asked: 'People that have seen people die, what happened?'
Content Warning: death, accidents, illness.
Death is typically the worst thing that we experience while watching a film or reading a book, but some of us have had the terrible experience of witnessing someone else's death in real life.
Redditor T_A_C_T_B asked:
"People that have seen people die (not in a video but actually in front of you), what happened?"
Chest Compressions
"Clinically died, but resuscitated."
"I worked in an ER for a month, he rolled in with an AV block so bad, he had an asystole."
"I've seen him gasping for air, then his eyes going out of focus and looking up, and then stopped breathing."
"Chest compressions and dobutamine got him back up. He got an emergency pacemaker implant."
- sybch
Blood Clots
"This is my cousin's story."
"He was five at the time. His mom (my first cousin) was putting him to bed and then she collapsed. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she was just barely breathing."
"He ran downstairs to get help. They called 911, but it was too late. She had a blood clot in her leg that traveled to her lungs. Her lungs started filling with blood. She was gone just like that."
"My mom (her aunt) was on the phone the whole time. I can never get the sound of my mom crying out of my head. It’s the worst sound a kid could ever hear. I was 13 when this happened."
"After that, any time someone had an ache, I was afraid it was a blood clot. Because that’s how my cousin's death started."
"I always have a feeling one of my parents would get into some accident. My dad is a farmer and I heard way too many stories about farming accidents. I experienced way too many people's funerals for my age at the time and death just felt like it was right there. Like it could happen to my friends and family so soon."
"That day changed my life forever. You couldn’t pay me to relive that night."
- Dogs4life2009
The Phone Calls
"I heard my grandma coughing and went to check on her. She was stuck in bed I’m not sure how long. Covered in vomit. I tried to help her to the bathroom and I saw the life leave her face. She dropped."
"I did CPR. I got my dad. I called 911. I showed the ambulance which one was my house."
"I saw them shock her. I heard them call time of death. An hour later, my uncle yelled in my face for not calling him first. I was 11."
- drunkandlonely223
The Transition
"I'm an RN, and it happens all the time. Usually they're unconscious already and they just go from looking asleep to not breathing."
- AdmlBaconStrapes
Lung Cancer
"I held my Dad's hand as he passed from lung cancer. My mother held his other hand, and he took his oxygen mask off, knowing what that meant."
"When he started to make some noises and take breaths after he passed, my mother thought he was 'coming back,' and it was heartbreaking. I just had to tell her that this is what happens. He was ready, it was just that we weren't ready to lose him."
"It was (and I know how terrible this sounds) a relief when it was over. He was very clear beforehand he didn't want to be on any machines, it was fully his choice to take off the mask himself, and it was his right to have that choice."
"I miss him every day; he was my Superman, and I'm grateful that I had the chance to thank him for being the best dad in the world."
"If you've lost somebody close or are struggling with grief, I'll save you the platitudes but I'd like to share one thing I found helpful to remember: we don't ever get over losing someone we love so much, but we do learn to adapt and adjust day by day."
"Grief counseling is more helpful than you'd think. My Superman dad arranged for my mother and me to have grief counseling before he died because he knew we were struggling to accept we would lose him, and he was fine and accepted what was happening. It really helped."
- SabrinaSpellman3
Surrounded by Family
"Me, my mom, and my sisters watched my dad die. It was the 'died peacefully surrounded by family' that you often see in obituaries."
"He was bedridden the last few years of his life due to an inoperable tumor. He would get bed sores, and one eventually got infected, and when we got to the hospital, they told us there was really nothing they could do."
"They waited until we were all there before they took him off life support. We all said our goodbyes while he was still somewhat with it, and while he was a little incoherent, his last real words were how much he loved us."
"After that, it was just us waiting. He was propped up in bed with his head down and it seemed no different than just watching someone sleep. It probably took about 17 to 18 hours. We all didn’t stay the whole time, but we were all there holding hands when he passed. We weren’t even 100% sure he was gone but a nurse came in and confirmed."
"No struggle, no pain, just peaceful."
"I will say, though… the worst part (other than the obvious) was the staff asked if we wanted to step outside for a few minutes so they could finish up and get him straightened out (he was hunched over in bed). When we got back into the room, he was positioned to be lying down but his mouth was wide open, looking like Van Gogh’s 'Scream' painting. That hit a lot harder and was more painful than actually watching him take his last breaths."
- McMc10001
Pedestrian Trouble
"Dude got his skull crushed by a f**king street car five feet away from me. I will never get the sound of it out of my mind for as long as I am alive. Drunk and on drugs, the dude tripped while trying to run across the street in front of it."
"F**k me, just typing this is giving me PTSD."
- himlersgasstation
Metastatic Breast Cancer
"I was with my mom when she passed as a result of metastatic breast cancer. She had been in and out of consciousness for a week but hadn't regained consciousness in two days. It was a brutal fight but a fairly peaceful death if that makes sense."
- WoodlesMoodles
Witnessing Grief
"I saw a poor guy in really bad shape at the part of the hospital where chemo patients sit. Saw a guy just flop over and a woman with him just started wailing. It was terrible."
"That was, for whatever reason, the day I quit Facebook. Just thought life was too fragile to mess around with social media."
"As I type this on Reddit..."
- Worf_in_a_Party_Hat
Heart Attack
"I work at a hotel as a housekeeper. About a week ago I accidentally entered the wrong room and the man in said room was having a heart attack. I'd forgotten my phone, so I sprinted like mad to inform the manager."
"He was initially still alive, but he died the following morning."
- Fr3nchT0astCrunch
Swimming Accidents
"Teens swimming. All of a sudden they panic, (I was on the other side of a body of water) I ran over, and their friend was underwater. I got him out and did CPR, but he didn’t make it. I dream of the kid sometimes."
"It’s not like the movies when the lungs expel water. Algae and whatever else went in my mouth, and they don’t wake up. At least that was my experience."
- Chiefzakk
Moving Boxes
"I was helping someone move apartments, and he had a heart attack right in front of me. Paramedics said it was a cardiac arrest from alcohol withdrawals. He didn't even make a sound. He just fell over and that was it."
- GotTechOnDeck
Breathing Transition
"I watched my mum take her last breath two weeks ago. After a night of really heavy breathing (heart failure), it went into shallow breathing, her face twitched a little, and went into her sleep."
- Bailey0423
A Familiar Phrase
"I’ve been working trauma and high-risk healthcare for nearly a quarter century and have seen more people die than I ever would have imagined."
"Reddit constantly downvotes this response, thinking it’s a Marvel reference."
"People really do often say, 'I don’t feel so good,' as their last words. Seasoned healthcare providers know that phrase is serious."
- Any_Move
We've all experienced something, with some situations being worse than others. But it's hard to imagine going through something worse than witnessing the final moments of someone's life, knowing there's nothing you can do to prolong their time.
All we can do is practice gratitude in our own lives and hug our loved ones a little tighter today.
We can all agree that we need a healthy dose of fun in our lives, and one sure way of keeping the fun around is to have a hobby we revisit regularly.
But while we can all agree about the importance of having a hobby, we certainly will not all agree about the financial investment involved in many of our options.
Redditor IAmTheQ asked:
"What are your expensive hobbies?"
Traveling
"I love to travel, which can be expensive. That's why I don't travel that often because I have to save up between trips. But I love traveling to new places and learning about the culture and history. If I was independently wealthy, I'd be traveling constantly."
- _Hir0sh1ma
"I hope you become independently wealthy."
- IAmTheQ
Fixing Cars
"Fixing cars."
"Simply, I don't get to enjoy it."
- NotYourAverageFox
Oil Painting
"Oil painting. I pay for a studio and sometimes paint is $30 for a small tube. Same with brushes. I can spend a cool $200 on like a couple of tubes of paint and a few paintbrushes once a month easily."
- Eatmysmalla**666
Astrophotography
"Astrophotography."
- Hopeful_Ad_9610
"That sounds out of this world."
- IAmTheQ
"It is indeed astronomically expensive."
- Hopeful_Ad_9610
Going to Concerts
"Going to concerts."
- ReeG
"Live music is the best way to spend money, I love concerts and shows."
- I_DRINK_ANARCHY
Raising Horses
"Horses."
- ExperienceSwimming57
"So much money!"
- Apprehensive-Air8917
"Came here to say that. And sometimes it isn't even my horse (I say as I look at a horse in our facility who bowed a tendon and the owner didn't properly start the medical process properly, and I said 'screw it,' and as of today [when I found out about the poor baby], I am now attempting to give this horse a proper shot at healing)."
- Hestias-Servant
Collecting Vinyl
"Vinyl records."
"I had to stop. It was causing major issues in my marriage. I unfollowed all the record-buying subreddits and started a savings account. I still look, but don't buy. It helps that the prices are stupid now."
- Subhumanoid
"I think you meant to say your marriage was causing major issues in your vinyl collecting."
- -Z-3-R-O-
Mountain Biking
"Mountain biking."
- hugeshanus
"Don’t tell non-mountain bikers how much a good dropper seat post costs, much less the complete bikes."
- Visdelupe
Growing Plants
"I grow plants. At first, sure, it was a simple hobby, and cheap. Just a seed and some dirt."
"Then you start doing hydro, experimental techniques, CO2 enrichment, high powered LED lights, and PPFD meters. Then comes the sub-400 wavelength light and light over 700 nm, various sprays, PPM, and pH meters."
"AH, you went cheap before, now you gotta get blue (an expensive brand). Oh, you got some o2 decencies in your water, need an O2 meter. The list goes on and on."
- Bojangles315
Making Cheese
"Cheese making. Why buy a reasonably-sized hunk of fancy cheese at the store when you can spend hundreds of dollars on milk, a couple grand on supplies and equipment, and months of your time on a slightly larger, but not as good tiny wheel of your own?"
- thegreatfartrocket
Playing Guitar
"Guitar lessons, guitars, and other guitar-related equipment."
- PatienceAndFortitude
"Teach a man to fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to play guitar and he never eats again."
- TheLurkingMenace
Painting in Miniature
"Miniature painting."
"My pile of shame is currently in a massive military surplus duffle bag under my bed."
"I am around 5 feet 10 inches, and can lay down flat in the bag."
"It weighs so much I can't lift it."
- Blankly-Staring
Pinball Machine Restoration
"Pinball machines. I have over 100 of them."
"I accidentally fell into the hobby when I bought a pinball machine and was told it just needed to be 'reset' to work. That was a lie and I realized very few people knew how to repair/restore these things."
"Once I learned how I started saving old pinball machines from being destroyed and started a collection. Now the hobby is a lot more popular than it used to be. It's fun to learn and share what I know about the games and the industry. And they're tons of fun to play."
"I created a youtube channel where I post videos of my pinball restorations. Over 500 videos to date."
- PinballHelp
Building with LEGO
"LEGO. Plastic crack."
- havefunSVO
"I’ve had $200 worth of sets sitting in my cart on Lego.com just waiting for me to get high or drunk enough to pull the trigger."
"Amazon is like $600… and that doesn’t include wishlists."
"I wish I could afford to invest in the actual company, haha!"
- GlasseyeMV
Skiing
"Skiing. If you ignore the cost of equipment, the cost of season passes, and travel, it's not too bad."
- Eron-The-Relentless
It's so important for us to have an activity that is just ours that brings us incredible joy. But at a certain point, we might need to ask ourselves, "At what cost?"
It takes one revelation about a person you know to suddenly have a completely different view of them.
A hidden talent, for example, can make you more impressed about a friend you had no clue could carry a tune.
Or someone who did an uncredited good deed can change your mind about them after you assumed they were the type of person who could care less about helping others.
But what happens if there's a sinister secret about a person you thought you knew coming to light?
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor Electrical-Lemon187 asked:
"What’s the most disturbing secret you’ve discovered about someone close to you?"
You think you know your family.
Last Words
"The 24 hours before my dad died (stage 4 lung cancer) he was in the ER and then the ICU and we were unable to be with him because of hospital Covid rules. My mother, sister and myself had been texting and calling him all day and got no response. My mother even called the hospital and spoke with one of his ICU nurses who said he was awake and communicating fine. He passed very quickly at 3:30am the next morning. We were allowed to be at his bedside but by then he was no longer conscious so we said our goodbyes and he was gone. Later that morning while my mom slept I was calling cremation services to schedule his body for pick up at the hospital and going through his bag of belongings the hospital had returned to us. His phone was in there and I wanted to read all our texts and take some comfort in my last words to him."
"I opened his phone and all our texts had not been read, not mine or my mom and sister’s. I thought this was so odd but figured he must have been suffering so much he couldn’t find the strength. I began to scroll through his apps and noticed a chat app I’d vaguely heard of. I can’t recall the name but it essentially works like WhatsApp."
"I opened the app and saw a single contact with a female name. I started reading and realized my dad has been chatting with this girl hourly for the last 24 hours and as far back as I could scroll. He was calling her princess and telling her he loved her and she was saying she was scared for him and wanted to know what was going on, why was he in the ER, etc. I scrolled back enough to know that this was someone he was having at the very least, an emotional affair with."
"My grief was completely hijacked by hurt and anger and a week later I tracked the girl down and spoke to her (via dms) and found out she was 19 years old. She was 17 when they met. He was her high school bus driver and she told me they had been dating for almost 2 years."
"My dad was 66 years old when he died and dating someone younger than his grandchildren, someone he chose to spend his last moments with and say his last goodbyes to. I hope it made him happy but it sure is a sh**ty secret to live the rest of my life with. A secret that will forever overshadow my entire relationship with my dad with no chance to ever speak to him about it. It’s the one secret I wish I’d never found out."
– Fuzzy_Central
Ancestry
"I don't know how disturbing this is; it turned out pretty fantastic for one. But not for another."
"I was adopted, and told a silly, magical story about my birth parents that most certainly did not seem true even when I was a child."
"At 57, I learned I was the result of a college affair between a very seriously Jewish young man and a very Baptist young woman. She was rushed off to a home for wayward girls to give birth. He followed her there (many states away), begging her to keep me and live a life together. But their families both said absolutely not. Jewish people were not viewed as 'white' in the mid-60s, and her family most certainly did not want her marrying a non-white. Plus, she was a very committed Christian and did not want to convert to Judaism."
"So off I went, into another family. I recently discovered three lovely half-siblings and we are all pro or semi-pro musicians and get along well. I never got to meet my mother; she died a year before I searched. My father is out of the picture and wants to be left alone. And I'm fine with that; I'm grateful for the love he gave me. It was enough."
"Endings to our searching are not always happy."
– cybersaint2k
The Shrine
"Found a scrapbook of my mom and a guy I didn’t recognize from her immediately post-college days. Turns out he was a long term boyfriend of hers who killed himself when she broke up with him. My grandfather found his body. I learned at age 20, by finding the book/shrine to him."
– olivep224
You think you know your friends.
Crazy Best Friend
"She was my best friend of 7 years, we had literally been through it all together. I moved out of state with my now husband, but she convinced us both to move back to be closer with her, after about a year. We had no real ties to the state we had tried out, so we said screw it, let’s go back, she’s basically family. We were all so happy to be reunited; she was over almost every night for dinner, we all laughed and talked and had a blast. Best year of my life."
"Then slowly, she started trying to turn my husband and I against each other. Anytime we had an argument (like any couple does) she would text each of us about how right we were; trying to foster animosity between the two of us."
"With me, she started talking about how she had a plan b for 'us', that if my husband and I couldn’t make it work, I could move in with her and we’d live happy lives together."
"With my husband, she started talking about her infertility issues and how she wanted to have a kid just like him, she just needed a sperm donor."
"This all happened at around the same time, and my husband and I compared texts and figured it out."
"She wanted to take his sperm, and have a baby with me. When confronted about it she refused to admit anything and started lashing out at both of us. It got to the point where she would show up unannounced, banging on the door, demanding a place in our home. It was so terrifying and panic inducing that we ended up having to move and change our phone numbers."
"I guess it’s so disturbing because I had never had a friend like her, only to find out that she, well she cared about me, but in such an unhealthy and scary way. But yeah, that’s my story."
"Husband and I are great now btw."
– lillylenore
His Fraudulent Degrees
"A work colleague appeared on the front page of a national newspaper for a life of fraudulent qualifications. He claimed medical and law degrees, was a brigadier in the army (reserves) and was the CEO for a major heath fund. He actually was a Brigadier in the army reserves but that and the heath fund role were largely built on the fraudulent qualifications and a progression of jobs also based on this claims. In reality, the only qualification he actually held was as a mortuary assistant. Not even his wife knew. The fraudulent degrees had been gained when he was in the army reserves recruiting and he had access to submitted position applications. He came undone when he applied for a government job and some flags were raised by the recruitment people. He tried to withdraw the application but didn’t realise that an application for a government role has the same weight as a statutory declaration and cannot be withdrawn. It all went south very quickly and he ended up doing jail time."
– crosstherubicon
You never truly know everything about people–even those who are closest to you.
They say ignorance is bliss, and that applies to many of examples provided by Redditors.
But if you were in their shoes, and depending on the circumstances, would you rather know the deepest and darkest secrets about those you care about?
When going on a first date, we are often on the lookout for "red flags", the key indicators that whoever is sitting across from us couldn't possibly be the love of our life.
More often than not, these red flags, be it something they said or did, are often a firm deal breaker in finding a partner.
Sometimes, however, there might be enough to make you overlook the glaring red flag you just had waved in your face.
And much to your surprise, you might find yourself falling head over heels in love with them, in spite of their one, obvious flaw.
"What's your biggest red flag in a partner?"
The Wisest Admit When They've Made A Mistake...
"Inability to recognize or admit when they've made a mistake."- UniversityEastern542
My Way Or The Highway...
"Using ultimatums to get their way instead of compromising."- Whed1956
And That Concerns Me, Why?...
"No respect for your interests or your time."- ElNakedo·
Bored Over It GIFGiphyIt's Can Be Easy To See Clearly Through The "Gaslight"...
"Manipulation on any level."- xfalinex
"Manipulating, gaslighting, 'winning'."- umbrex
Is It Really So Difficult To Say "I'm Sorry"?...
"Inability to apologize."- theregoesthevillage
Sorry Taylor Swift GIFGiphyHonesty is ALWAYS The Best Policy...
"My biggest red flag in a partner would be their inability to communicate effectively and be honest with me."
"Trust is key."- Proper_Ad5123
What You See Is What You Get
"Wanting to change my style and look."
"First girlfriend wanted me to wear button up shirts, colored my hair brown, and even wanted me to wear brown colored contact lenses."
"Coincidentally these were all features of her cousin who she later married."
"A good partner helps you grow and become the best version of you."
"They don't try to mould you into their own vision."- AdmiralClover
Alicia Silverstone Makeover GIF by filmeditorWritten In The Stars
"Blames their sh*tty behaviour on their star sign."
"Yeah, I ain't buying the 'it's because I'm a Scorpio" bullsh*t."- A_Direwolf
...Or Maybe A Scratched Cornea?
"An eyepatch. It's a sign of dangerous living, possibly pirate or rustler but certainly an outlaw."- beathelas
Temper Temper...
"Can't control their anger and/or hits and breaks stuff when angry."- LilleSmurfine
There Is Nothing More Important In Life...
"Your significant other restricting you from hanging out with your friends."- AagamAaghnya
There Is So Much More To Life...
"If their political views are their whole personality."- V1p3rzach
brooklyn nine nine politics GIFGiphyIt's fair enough to have deal breakers when it comes to finding a partner.
Always remember though, first impressions can be misleading.
And love has a way of helping you overlook the imperfections of others.