Comfort Foods For the Soul

Do you have a “comfort food”?

It might be something from your youth. For example, ThatManILove loves him some New York style hotdog. If you don’t know what this is (for they rarely serve them in West Texas!), it’s a hot dog with mustard, lettuce, tomato, and pickles. No chili. And the only place locally he can get them is (1) at home, when he makes them, and (2) at Der Wienerschnitzel, which is located 20 miles away in Odessa.

For me? It’s Starbucks Venti Chai, no water.

Foodwise? Cornbread, with a little bit of sweet to it. Lordy, I do love me some cornbread. And blackeyed peas, please.

My comfort food used to be Cool Ranch Doritos and a Dr. Pepper. I really thought that was great food for breakfast (oh, yeah...I’m an oilfield gal!). I rarely drink Dr. Pepper now, but I will sneak a Cool Ranch Dorito chip or two!

When Outback came to town (I celebrated that day!), we would always start out a meal with Aussie Cheese Fries. Until I read the calorie count in those puppies a couple of years ago. I couldn’t believe it.

And now, the Aussie Cheese Fries have made the #1 listing in the Me n’s Health.com article “The 20 Worst Foods In America” - with a rocking 2900 calories per order.

My Chai didn’t make it, but it should have, at 300+ calories, and that’s with low-fat milk.

I quit. If you see me going thru the Starbucks drive-thru, feel free to stop me and check me for drinks.

So, what's your comfort food?

I Cannot Make This Stuff Up

I’m going to be writing this in a delayed fashion, because...

1. I’m still in a little shock

2. I’m still returning voice mails and e-mails and that’s taking up huge portions of my day. People are pouring out love, though, and I thank you for all your sweet and straight up comments. I love you all!

So. It’s Wednesday morning. I woke up at 6 a.m., a little late for me. Zack the Wonderdog was snuggled under the covers next to ThatManILove. I stealthily crept into the TV room, popped open the Mac (another story in itself) and started returning e-mails. I worked on this hard for about an hour.

And then, I lay back down on the couch and crashed.

At 9:30 a.m., ThatManILove came in to the room, concerned that he woke up and I wasn’t by his side. He said, “Babe, your phone’s been ringing off the wall.”

He gave it to me, and, dang. The voice mail was full AGAIN - 14 messages, and 15 e-mails. He started laughing. And then, he said, “Well! I checked my phone, and I have two messages, and three e-mails.” I just looked at him. He said, “Well, okay, yeah...they’re from yesterday.”

He is so funny.

He asked me if I wanted to go eat breakfast somewhere. Did I? No. I wanted to bury my head under the covers, but I knew that I could not do that. I had to get busy.

We compromised. He offered to make me cinnamon toast...a comfort food that hails back to my youth.

So off he went to the kitchen, dogs in hot pursuit. I hear him banging around, and before long, I smell cinnamon and butter. Yummmm. In a second, though, I smell something burning, and I cry out to him. He quickly assures me he’s got it, and in a minute, he comes back into the TV room bearing cinnamon toast. His is burned, but mine is not.

He sits down by me, and grabs a piece of toast, and bites into it. Immediately, his face screws up. Something’s not right. He spits it out.

I say, “What’s wrong?”

He smells of it, then reaches out for my plate.

He says, and I kid you not, “I put salt on it instead of sugar.”

And off he goes to make the real thing. You think we’re turned a little sideways by all this job deal? ThatManILove is a gourmet cook, I swear. The dogs wouldn’t even eat it.

I laughed until I cried. I did. It's never boring around here.