Miss M and I really did go to Our State Capital the other day, but we didn’t stay.

Daughter C and Mr. Big Food really did go to Hotlanta. Oh! What stories they brought home. (They showered upon their return, ensuring that stories were the only things they brought home.)

But that was last week.

This week Miss M and I really are going to Our State Capital but won’t be staying until next week.

Mr. Big Food is headed to Long Island. 

[INSERT PHOTO OF JACOB AT COLD SPRING HARBOR]
[with caption stating that if I had my things about me, I could find an even better photo– I have a bunch of crappy old history of biology books. Point being that Mr. Big Food for the second time in his life will be at Cold Spring Harbor]

And Daughter C is at home on the Farm for the duration. As Miss M & I will be.

As we were all here last Sunday evening, we* enjoyed Entry #4 in our Fall ’14 Macaroni & Cheese Contest: Diner Mac & Cheese with Turkey Franks.

Diner Mac & Cheese with Turkey Franks is the leader, thus far. I can prove it. 

Diner Mac & Cheese with Turkey Franks is a classic mac & cheese recipe. Cheesy sauce with a touch of mustard that I could have done without. But an excellent– truly excellent!– breadcrumb topping. 

On the back of the envelope where I collect the various bits of data concerning the Fall ’14 Macaroni & Cheese Contest are written two quotes:

10/19 CLC: Please note that I’ve liked every one.

and

10/19 JB: Please note that… .

Daughter C also commented that the mac & cheese contest was a lot harder than the soup contests. Which I hope explains my comment about the mustard. It’s a grain issue. When you are ranking soups… . Haven’t we covered this already?

The second problem is that macaroni and cheese casseroles have just two unchanging main ingredients. Look back at the variety of soup entries— not often two soups had the same two main ingredients. 

Back to Diner Mac & Cheese with Turkey Franks which got two #1 votes and one #2 vote. How does it fair compared to, let’s say, Veggie Mac & Cheese with One #1, one #2, and one #4? Or Ro*tel with two #2 and one #3???????

Our weekly rankings are ordinal. We’ve covered this many times here and when I don’t have to be up at O’Dark Thirty to take Mr. Big Food to the Airport, I will link. But for now– consider that there are four entries. All we need to do is rank them. And therein is the pitfall.

It is impossible to quantify the distance between “1” & “2” & “3”. More impossible still to quantify and standardize the distances between a star and a moon and a clover. Ranking things that are not measurable leads to all sorts of problems. 

Here’s how you get around this problem– Dawgs are still #1, by the way, even though they didn’t play this weekend. You make everything a pair-wise comparison with a clear winner and looser and add up the wins and loses. 

So. see?  With a score of 7.2 Diner Mac is #1!! And Ro*tel is tied with Veggie for #2. 




*So by “we” I mean we were all on the Farm but as a vegan, Miss M did not participate in the mac & frank dinner.