Jos, you have my sympathy. Thanks to a childhood spent in the 1950s and '60s, I find mushy food in general, and macaroni and cheese in particular, notably unpleasant. I'm trying to get my head around the notion of a "dessert" featuring overcooked macaroni, and it's not sitting well even mentally.

Last night I left the kitchen when I should not have done, got into a conversation about kittens with Jane Across The Street, and forgot about the brown rice I was parboiling on the stove before assembling a chicken dish to be baked in a Romertopf. It's decades since I last actually forgot something on the stove long enough for it to be completely wrecked. The stench hovered in the house for hours, and I had to make the chicken dish with white rice that came out gluey and bland.

Suitable punishment.