COMFORT FOOD

You need to use this season to INDULGE yourself.  Don’t ask permission from the uppy-ups.  You are just ASKING to be smacked down.  Eat.  Smoke.  Drink (do not drive).  Have a joint, if that’s your bailiwick.  Pick yer poison.

COMFORT comes in many colors but it looks like most of them are blond!

Comforting, but inedible

This all comes down to The Peanut Butter Sandwich, Macaroni & Cheese, Mayonnaise, White Bread, Waffles, Spaghetti, and a U.S.D.A  Idaho Spud!  [Truth be told, if you choose the latter of the poisons in the first paragraph, you COULD add Cake Batter to this list….but that’s another story for another time.]  Come to think of it, a Pillow is white but you dare not eat it.

Ol' Paint

What IS it about visual stimuli?  It’s sooooooooo hypnotic!   I am immediately thrust backward, into childhood, whenever I see my waffle iron.  The feet are broken and have to be shimmed so the thing doesn’t tilt (even though the sight of batter oozing from one side is fascinating to watch).  The knob is gone and I have to use a screwdriver to turn it….but that was years ago and the accumulation of goop has rendered it “turnless” these days.  That the iron has that sticky, gummy residue all over it bothers me not; it’s just a testament to the workhorse abilities of the little machine.  Its brand, new silver-ness is a thing of the past but there’s something about that weather-beaten, burnt down exterior that just SCREAMS: I am a loved little appliance.

  

Feet of Yeti

This season, I have been waxing nostalgic ad nauseum.  I made crostoli (this little “Italian” cookie-ish thing has many names: Bow Knots, Crispelles, etc.).  I was awash with memories of my Grandfather one day.  He had this girlfriend (one of a multitude), a little round dumpling of a thing named Mary Pascuzzi.  She had four words to her English vocabulary, “Hello, Honey” was one set.  The next set began with, “You Granfadda…” followed by a litany of Italian words, all a scathing indictment of his erroneous ways told to me as she flung those knots into the hot oil.  HOWEVER, she made these crispelles that tasted like heaven on a cloud.  She worked tirelessly kneading this sweet dough into eventual thin knots, which she would fry, drizzle with honey, and then sprinkle with powdered sugar.  I hold her personally responsible for last week’s 5lb weight gain because I made them.  Once I tried to make calzones:  they looked like I made Feet of Yeti for dinner.  

Of course, I had to give the first four batches to the squirrels here.  Memory seems to be a LOT different when you get older.  YOU can go home again; but your taste buds canNOT. 

    

Manwich

But what can you do to a Peanut Butter Sandwich on White Bread.  I hid the Orowheat Light Wheat Bread in the freezer and started a weeklong trek into my past, yet again.  What IS it about Skippy Creamy and soft, dreamy white bread?????  I do NOT eat ESSENCE of Peanut Butter Sandwiches either.  The fact is a peanut butter sandwich must be made to completely remove all ability to speak once you have taken a bite.

Start

This brings us to Macaroni & Cheese.  The Great American Food.  Five minutes to throw together, one hour of taste bud ecstasy and satisfaction.  Of course, if you REALLY want to do it up right, you throw in sharp grated cheese (a ton, of course) and throw it in the oven for a while so it gets crusty on top and gooey in the middle.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh, sated again.

Finish

While I’m on the subject of macaroni…  Take your chi-chi penne (which is just about mostaccioli only shorter and skinnier).  For God’s sake, people, these fancy names for stuff we eat are just about to kill me.  So throw down a plate of spaghetti, cover it with sauce or serve it up douched in Olive Oil and Parmesan Cheese and dig in.  Oh, the “blondness” of it all!

"...it's O-S-C-A-R"

And lest we forget:  Mayonnaise.  I recall a mayonnaise sandwich or two, back in the day.  If I HAD to, a piece of Oscar Mayer B-O-L-O-GNA, again on pure and pristine white bread slathered with Ye Olde Mayo, could go a long way when I felt down in the dumps.

El Magnifico

And FINALLY:  The Staple of all Staples:  MR. POTATO.  What can I say?  If EVER there was a little beast that just begged to be eaten, it is the potato.  I'm sure it actually quivers with excitement and anticipation when the toppings (or not) are prepped to be-crown this majesty of food.  A fat baked spud, drooling with real butter, suffocating under the tremendous weight of real sour cream and, what say you? chives? bacon? broccoli?  Oh, the Wonder of a Potato.  That fluffy (blond) center, steaming and gorgeous........that crisp peel........  I'm in love.  I need a minute to collect myself.

So, you go ahead and self-comfort, because the government sure isn’t going to help you out while you’re down in the dumps, but good ol’ Mother Nature (and a little bit of science) sure ain’t gonna hurt.

  

Here's smoking at you, kid

If we leave every decision up to Legislators to decide whether or not: we’re either too fat or too skinny, (and THEY set the bar), whether we can or cannot smoke here or there, if we’re too gay to serve our country, if we should drill offshore (thankfully recently rescinded), if we should not tax the wealthy *http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Tax/ge-exxon-paid-us-income-taxes-09/story?id=10300167, we’re in deep doo-doo.  There are reports that the government of Afghanistan is corrupt in spite of alllllllllllllll the U.S. dollars being funneled into “fixing” it.  Big business, here, with the permission of our government, engages in felonious misconduct as the result of that same government’s lack of serious oversight, all to the detriment of the American People.

How many gays who fought for us
are interred here?

Well, we’ve only spent http://costofwar.com/, while the United States is going to hell in a hand basket, and FAST.  That Congress Lets Unemployment Benefits Expire (during this CHRISTMAS season) http://egpnews.com/?p=22169 defies intelligent comprehension about The Peoples’ (that’s you and me) decision to vote some of these men and women into offices of power.  Furthermore, not every State in the Union declares animal cruelty a Felony.  Ok, personal feelings aside on the animal cruelty issue….

So, while we sit here and let felons run rampant in our streets using what-all kinds of guns to snipe us on the highway but spend countless dollars enacting all kinds of this-a’s and that-a’s to keep us from smoking (WHEN is the last time you saw a drive-by cigarette shooting?????), I think we need COMFORT (see beginning of this article).

This beautiful 6-year old was a drive-by victim.
Someone's beloved child is gone forever.

Maybe you’d rather sit there, stupefied into apathy by The Real Housewives of Atlanta (or Orange County) and waste your life watching them bitch-slap each other, because it’s easier than working an Abuse Hotline.  On the other hand, perhaps you’d like your senses dulled by Jersey Shore, justifying watching it because it SOMEHOW got a People’s Choice Award so it MUST be good, intellectual TV, right?  Then, again, it beats working at a Teen Center, trying to help disadvantaged youth.  You may prefer The Bachelorette where everyone and anyone can and will be humiliated.  One of The Bachelors took his own life last month (uh, that would be Real Life).  Gee, work a suicide hotline?  Hmmmm, there’s a thought.  While these shows are stuffed down your throat, suffocating you into malaise and denial, I suggest you devise a way to somehow fight against the machine.  Start by watching Network and Wag the Dog and get a grip on your manipulators!!!!

Chill

I think I’d better go make a margarita.  Maybe two.  They’ll make me feel better about my unemployment benefits being cut off.  Don’t worry, I can’t drive after I drink: my new car was repo’d after I was laid off.  GM has no sense of humor.

I ran a spell check on this and it said I write like an eighth grader:  as if I give a kwap.  Let it spell check KWAP! 

I’LL decide whether or not I spelled it right or wrong.  Meanwhile, I'm going to go make some pancakes (blond, of course!).

 What a world, what a world………