Okay, Tesla, first chocolate dipped cruller I see, I am ALL OVER IT.

Anne in MA, as someone from Cambridge, I feel your pain and confusion, but it's true, ketchup on Kraft Dinner here is like a religion, only more serious. Me, I prefer Frank's Hot Sauce, but then I'd put hot sauce in my coffee if I could.

Tesla, what's your opion on Annie's white cheddar mac & cheese? Kind of the upmarket peace, love & granola version.....

Dan, seriously, how can you NOT follow a discussion ranging from trans/proms/blue sequins/Timbits/KraftDinner???? Geez, I thought you were a fellow English major.......

@103: The very idea of a boxed dinner suggests that it's really a cheap solution to fill the tummy. It's the university student dinner of champions. I've had Annie's mac & cheese once, and it was quite some time ago. I seem to recall it being either $2.29 or $2.69. All things being what they are, I wasn't blown away by it given that it was more than twice the price of a box of old skool KD. The PCWC, by contrast, is at least as good and less than half as costly. As natural brands went, I always preferred Amy's Kitchen pot pies — namely, the broccoli-cheese one — with, of all things, Colman's English mustard. Yeah, that one's weird.

The magic of a cheap boxed dinner is in the ingredients one can add to them to take them to the next level. I love adding a spoonful of whole sour cream into KD, because I sort of concede that box dinners are not that healthy to begin with. So why not embrace the poor health by adding rich-tasting ingredients? I use cultured butter (Lactania and PC out here), and I use half-n-half instead of milk. After that, I just throw in whatever I've lying around: Yves veggie dogs, chili beans, whole tomatoes (which is as close as I'm willing to go towards ketchup), and Tabasco branded chipotle sauce. I'm not a big fan of the other thing people around here put in their KD: canned tuna.

By the way, I love love love Frank's Hot Sauce as a dip for Pizza Pizza. They offer it now as one of their dipping sauce choices, but I keep a bottle around because it just works so, so well. And like you, there is almost no such thing as a bad place for hot sauce or tasty heat. This is why I absolutely love Mexican hot chocolate and chili pepper ice cream (not so sure about hot sauce in coffee, though). And it's why I generously grace a great clam chowder with original tabasco sauce. It's about the flavour atop the heat. Habañero salsa, which is just pure heat with bitter undertaste, is just blunt-instrument boring, eh?

Mmmm. Food porn. We're going there.

To all re: chocolate-dipped crullers, you might have to get to know your local Timmies well and then pre-order a big batch of stuff for your office. It's how this one turned up (and it was the ONLY one). And for what it's worth, the culprit Timmies location responsible for this stroke of pastry genius was in Westmount, Québec.

@ 103, 105: You know, there will always be a special place in my heart for the delightfully cheap crap that is KRAFT CHEESE AND MACARONI. But I've taken to making the stuff from scratch, oven-baked. It's...well, let's just say it's a miracle I haven't gotten a heart attack.

But if I do end up needing a coronary bypass? Totally. Worth. It.

No ketchup allowed on my macaroni, though.

Anne, that sounds wonderful. I'm going to be in Providence in two weeks; I'd look you up and share some of that, but I'll be too busy gorging myself on seafood. I don't see much of that here.

@ 108 - Can't blame you. Seafood is amazing. Besides, if you've got a free night, you can just look up a recipe for oven baked mac n cheese (Martha Stewart's is amazing).

The sad part is, when I go visit my parents, the food thing I get really excited about is...seafood. Specifically, Maryland crab cakes.

I had some "pretty good" crab cakes at Legal Seafood the last time I was there. Not as good as the real thing, but better than nothing.

Now you've got me thinking about soft-shelled crabs, though. That's a real weak spot for me.

The powdered cheese formula for KD and for the Yank "Macaroni and Cheese Dinner" (what a mouthful) are actually slightly different. I have friends from the states who have insisted that I bring on down a few boxes of KD when I go to visit.

The best macaroni and cheese I ever tasted was at the Icon Grill. Anne, I will invite you to wow me in a way that not even Icon can do. Win this girl's heart through her palate.

Seattleites, do speak up on why Icon still has a name all these years later (and no, not for having weak façades crashing down on people).

@110: In Seattle, dungeness crabs. They aren't soft-shelled, but they are worth it.

@111: I left out the Icon reference link to fallen façades.