The best mac-and-cheese recipe ever!

​One of this city’s most iconic restaurants of the 1980s was a vibrant bistro on 39th Street called Cafe Lulu, owned and operated by flame-haired chef Lou Jane Temple. After the restaurant closed in 1992, it remained the inspiration for Temple’s series of culinary mysteries featuring a stripper-turned cook-turned-mystery solver named Heaven Lee.

Temple is still a chef, but now for a private client on the East Coast; she’s living in Georgia and writing a new novel. But in 2004, Temple and co-author A. Cort Sinnes wrote The Big Platter Cookbook (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) which features a nearly foolproof recipe for Cafe Lulu’s Macaroni and Cheese, a popular dish from her namesake restaurant.

“When you make this at home,” Temple says, “you should keep all the ingredients separate until the very last minute, just before you pop it in the oven, so the pasta doesn’t have a chance to soak up the sauce.” This recipe serves eight as a main dish — even more as side dish. Temple suggests adding lobster for a truly impressive dinner party.

Lou Jane gave Fat City permission to reprint this celebrated recipe, which follows….