Winter Joy Retreat-Day 1: Food and Comfort

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Today's topic:
Tell us about your comfort foods. Where do they take you? What houses, seasons, cities, and life changes circle around those foods that made you feel everything would be OK?

There are so many places my mind goes when I think of comfort foods. I can't seem to shut it off. I think of foods from my youth and even from now. Some have stood the test of time and others have slipped by the wayside. Keeping Kosher has caused me to give up certain things, but opening myself up more to trying new things (not all...fish is still on my "don't" list) has expanded my palate. I also don't know how to differentiate between favorite foods and comfort foods. What I'll do today is list a bunch and share some thought or memory associated with them. I can't really articulate which houses, seasons, cities, or life changes circle around these foods. I might be able to for some, but not all. I didn't include traditional Jewish foods because I associate them more with rituals and occasions than as comfort foods.

My husband's French onion soup

*French onion soup: I didn't start liking it until college, but I remember going out with my family as a kid and my parents would order it and let me have some of the melted cheese. It carried the taste from the soup, so I had an idea of what the experience would be like. Ever since I've tried it, I love eating it. Unfortunately, I've had to give up eating it at restaurants, but my husband makes it at home and it's so delicious. He melts the cheese on the soup in our dairy oven and puts a piece of homemade French bread (challah works too) inside. Heavenly! I associate French onion soup with autumn and cold, rainy days like today.

*Popcorn: I love going to the movies, but I don't always buy their overpriced popcorn. However, the smell always makes me think of the movie theater. When it wasn't so expensive, I enjoyed a bag of hot popcorn with butter drizzled on it. I'd even melt butter at home and pour it on microwave popcorn to re-create the taste. At our college movie theater, they had small bags of popcorn for a dollar. While it was rather salty, it was still good and I associate having popcorn with my DVDs on Saturday nights to sitting in the big lecture hall watching a second-run film. I also associate the smell with the Mundelein Theater where I would go for Rocky Horror every weekend. The smell of popcorn permeated the small lobby and smelling it even now brings back fun memories.

*Ice cream: I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't have ice cream. There's something just so comforting and satisfying about it. It doesn't matter if I'm eating it at an ice cream store or parlor or on my couch while watching my favorite TV shows. I love putting Magic Shell on it, but have realized how many calories that contains, so I don't do it as often as before. Magic Shell definitely brings me back to childhood though, when it didn't matter how many calories something had. I love the way the chocolate tastes after it hardens and how it blends so well with the ice cream. Chocolate chip cookie dough is one of my go-to ice cream flavors. I also like something with peanut butter and chocolate in it.

*Grilled cheese sandwiches: These are also a staple of both my youth and adulthood. I usually would get a grilled cheese sandwich whenever we went to a diner. Buffalo Restaurant (in Buffalo Grove, Illinois) made really good grilled cheese sandwiches. I know they're hard to screw up, but sometimes restaurants would make them super oily or use too much butter. Yuck! Buffalo got them just right every time. I also liked getting them from the dining hall in college. There was one that would cook them on order, so they were hot off the grill. My husband makes grilled cheese sandwiches too. They're really good. We have a tradition where we'll break the fast on Yom Kippur with a grilled cheese sandwich. I also will make toasted cheese sandwiches if I want something quick and easy. It's especially good on Zadie's Bakery challah (from Fair Lawn, NJ). One of my hang-ups is that I won't eat cheese unless it's melted. So I won't just have a cheese sandwich unless it's been in a frying pan or in the toaster oven. The way the cheese melts onto the bread is just comforting to me and I can't even explain why.

*Chinese food: I used to get Chinese food almost every week when I was growing up. When I worked at my favorite Chinese restaurant, it was several times a week. (I'd get a free meal each night I worked...lucky me!!!) As a kid, I was very picky and only liked egg drop soup (which my husband now makes), beef with gravy, and rice or pan fried noodles. After I started working at the restaurant, I'd try new things. Later on, my favorite dish was chicken garlic lo mein. I also started liking egg rolls a lot more. We don't have a good Kosher Chinese restaurant nearby (we have one, but it's not good), so the closest really good one is about 45 minutes away. This now makes Chinese food a special treat as opposed to something I can get all the time. I even find the smell of Chinese food comforting. I buy Bigelow Oolong tea as the flavor reminds me of going out for Chinese food. Aside from his egg drop soup (which is amazing), my husband also makes Mongolian beef, teriyaki chicken, and orange chicken. He's even made Pad Thai before. It's nice to have homemade Chinese food that has a restaurant taste to it. I have a lot of good memories tied in with Chinese food. Family dinners, nights out with my dad, gatherings with friends, birthday parties (especially my late maternal grandma's 80th birthday), dates, etc.

My husband's egg drop soup

*Rice: I know this is such a staple food that goes with almost anything, but rice has always been comforting to me. It could be Chinese rice (white or fried), Basmati rice, Rice-a-Roni, rice pilaf, white rice with a sauce mixed in to add flavor, etc. I could just eat rice by itself without a meal surrounding it. At the Chinese restaurant, when I had a break to eat, sometimes I'd just get a bowl full of rice and put some gravy on top, mixing it in. I think the warm and filling feel is what makes rice such a comfort food for me. When my husband makes rice, he boils it in jasmine tea, which goes well with the Chinese food he cooks.

*Chocolate chip cookies: I love the taste and smell of an amazing chocolate chip cookie. The best kind are homemade, but I'm also happy with the ones from Costco. I love to freeze homemade cookies and then eat them straight out of the freezer. I also freeze them so they'll last longer, given that if I keep them out, I won't stop eating them. (Not that the freezer stops me, but they're not in my field of vision...) I used to bake chocolate chip cookies on Oscars night, but now that we don't have cable, I don't watch them anymore. I still will just bake cookies for the fun of it. And I double the recipe. I only use the toll house recipe, even if I'm making them with non-dairy chocolate chips. That's the only recipe I truly love and associate with my childhood.


What are YOUR comfort foods?