Four girlfriends met for a potluck dinner Saturday night. The hostess prepared macaroni and cheese,
referring to it as comfort food, despite a more nutritional deviation from the traditional recipe. One person brought a sauteed vegetable dish with cubed yams, spinach and onion. Another made a tasty salad complete with bits of dried cherries. A loaf of olive bread and a bottle of Chardonnay brought it all together.
I baked two comfort foods from the past- Snickerdoodle cake, my husband's favorite as a child, which he started baking when he was 10, and my childhood favorite, peanut butter cookies. For the latter, I used my deceased mom's handwritten recipe. There was enough food, plenty for seconds if we chose, to provide comfort for the entire evening.
But the greatest comfort was in the security of our friendship as we chatted and played a board game. The warmth of that dining room setting was in marked contrast to the windy and rainy weather outdoors. Earlier that evening, we visited a friend who is the fifth member of our regular potluck get-togethers. She is undergoing treatment for the return of breast cancer after 14 years of remission. She began to tire, so we kept our visit brief.
It was a comfort for us to see her, to know that she is doing well, and that the high spirits we read in her emails are in fact the real thing. She has her moments, her bad days, but those are supplanted by her champion, the spirit that promises to win, and to win big.
No doubt our visit also comforted her, as we hadn't seen her in three months. She has found a way to keep her life as normal as possible, still going to work, then teaching at a community college in the evenings. That's the business side of her. Her social side is kept alive with social networking and more visits from other friends.
Food and friends. Life just doesn't get any more comforting than that.
RemarkAble Woman, who and what are the comforts in your life? In what ways do they provide comfort?
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