Baked Mac and Cabot Cheddar a’la Paula

I am a hospice volunteer, and baking for my hospice family at Vermont Respite House in Williston is an honor. Up to twelve good souls are spending their final days in individual rooms and are able to invite family and friends to celebrate their lives and help them live well until they die. My volunteer role is to prepare meals for residents, and as often as possible, rather than cooking from the house’s larder, I bring in a great meal like the one below so I can feed everyone, including staff and visitors.

Volunteer work is fundamental to the Cabot Creamery Cooperative credo. Yes, I volunteer on my own time, but I am most proud to be part of a team that has championed Cabot’s initiatives, which have supported volunteers for over twenty-five years. These initiatives include the Cabot Community Celebrity Cruise, which gives forty-five volunteers a long-overdue vacation and indelible networks among like souls at sea, and our Reward Volunteers app, which logs and rewards volunteer hours for individuals and organizations throughout the country. Like the variety of community service chores our farmers perform every day in the communities in which they farm, we represent their nature in all our promotions for their Cabot brand. We don’t just sample their cheese where there are crowds for fairs and festivals, but we turn up to feed volunteers who are building homes or feeding the hungry and homeless with our Farmers’ Gratitude Grille.

My hospice training started with a glorious woman named Paula Fives-Taylor, PhD—a longtime microbiology professor at the University of Vermont who was recognized internationally for her achievements in microbiology. She was honored as one of Cabot’s Community Celebrities—not for her academic accolades but rather for her volunteer contributions to hospice in Vermont as part of the Visiting Nurses Association’s end-oflife care.

This yummy, quick recipe is one of Cabot consumers’ favorites on our website. While I’ve prepared it many times at the respite house, easily doubling the recipe depending on who is in residence or visiting, I’ve asked Paula to add her special touch—to amplify it— as she has done for so many of us.