Comfort Food
I've been down and out with a nasty cold this week and dreaming of all the food that I would make were I able to drag myself out of bed. Chicken noodle soup is the obvious, but there's spaghetti with meatballs, squash casserole, miso soup and deviled eggs. The concept of comfort food is fascinating really--that there are certain things that we eat when we are feeling under the weather. For me, comfort foods may or may not be a dish from childhood and are not necessarily my favorite foods, but I suppose there is some sort of deep emotional attachment. Chicken noodle soup as a child came out of a Campbell's can; now, it's the real deal and I crave it but only make it when someone doesn't feel well. When pregnant, the only craving I experienced was for my mother's chicken casserole. I'm not sure that it ever had another name or where the recipe came from, but I make it from a stained recipe card that I copied the summer I moved into my first apartment. I don't think that I had eaten that casserole for 15 years, but wanted it then, by golly, and have made it fairly often in the eight years since my pregnancy. By the way, when I emerged from the bed yesterday, I made deviled eggs, but I only managed to eat two before my husband wolfed down the entire plate.