In her kitchen in Haverhill, Mass., on Thursday, Leanna Nieves approached the construction of her homemade macaroni and cheese with the passion of an artist, and an architect’s precision. She cooked three boxes of pasta and grated, chopped and mixed four kinds of cheese, mounding it in a massive foil turkey pan.
Until a few days ago, Ms. Nieves, 34, had not known if there would be a turkey in her oven this year, with food prices soaring and her federal grocery benefits thrown into uncertainty in recent weeks. But she knew there had to be homemade macaroni for her three children, ages 9, 13 and 15.
“The kids told me, we can go without a turkey, but please make mac and cheese, if you don’t make anything else,” she said.
A few days earlier, Ms. Nieves shopped for groceries for Thanksgiving at a market in Haverhill. Together, the family had decorated for the holiday, hanging balloons shaped like acorns and autumn leaves and arranging tiny velvet pumpkins on the table. The youngest, Olive, had dressed up, with a red bow in her hair. The two family cats, Luna and Cleo, had joined the party.
Ms. Nieves’s best friend had made the drive from Worcester, an hour west, to join them, bringing her own two children and a container of fragrant homemade Spanish sofrito, a flavorful sauce the friends would use to season several dishes.
It felt like Thanksgiving in the ways that mattered most to Ms. Nieves: Her family was together, and, for a few hours, they could set aside the nagging daily worries about rent and groceries and car repairs. As the day wore on, fear and anxiety gave way to an unexpected kind of grace.
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