Comfort Food, It's Not Just a Winter Thing

Just saying "comfort food" brings satisfying thoughts.  All these food memories or imprints from my childhood leap into mind.  When I would get sick, my mom would grill a gooey peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me.  To this day, I love, not a toasted PB&J, but a grilled PB&J.

Everyone has their own comfort food favorites.  I did my own informal survey.  My husband leans towards the rib sticking mac & cheese, pasta with pesto or pizza.  Another male friend said mashed potatoes and turkey.  I asked several girlfriends and they leaned towards bread, a quickie mart sandwich or ice cream.  In researching this article, sure enough the Cornell Food and Brand Lab studied our comfort food preferences by gender:

"Results showed most men prefer hot meals to snacks. Most women considered their favorite comfort foods to be ice cream, chocolate and cookies. The three foods most men considered to be their favorite comfort foods were ice cream, soup and pizza or pasta."

Cornell's conclusion is men feel pampered with their comfort food choices.  Women, who also enjoy hot meals, think of the work associated with putting such a meal together and therefore lean towards the quick fix.  The ladies choices are hassle free with little clean up.

Whatever the case, our collective comfort food choices are not what you call slimming choices.  And therein lies the challenge.  We all are going to fall for our favorites now and then, but how do we do it healthier way?  Several magazines are doing a pretty good job at reinventing the comfort food standards.  But they usually are published in the winter issues.  My trusted Southern Living Magazine recipe editors surprised me with an early spring version of Chicken Pot Pie with lovely leeks, carrots and new potatoes.  I highly recommend it.

Photo: Jennifer Davick, Southern Living

To further the "healthiness" factor we used left over roasted grass fed chicken from a previous meal and we used all organic veggies from our farmer's market. 

If you are willing to put in the work it's well worth it!  It will beat Swanson's or Marie Calender's any day and won't have nearly the saturated fats, sodium and preservatives.  Here's a link to the recipe:

Southern Living's Chicken Pot Pie recipe

Organic Farm Stay with Friends Delivers On Downtime

Driving down the scenic Pacific Coast Highway earlier this month from a long spring weekend getaway in Paso Robles, I noted to myself how insanely calm I felt.  The kind of feeling one would get, I imagine, after a good meditation session.

Generally speaking I handle stress pretty well.  As part of the management of my stress I exercise, have hobbies, enjoy good friends and try not to worry about the things I cannot change.  I wish I could say I've also mastered the art of meditation in the traditional sense of the word.  But I have not.  And it is not for the lack of trying.

Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that benefits both your emotional well-being and your overall health - Mayo Clinic

Silence my mind while trying to sit still?  Nope...no success; there's so many thoughts that creep into my mind space.  A yoga session of downward-facing dogs and eagle poses is calming...but peace of mind?  I'm too busy concentrating on not falling over!   Plant a bell pepper seedling in my vegetable patch, chop a gorgeous tomato or go in search a great Spanish cheese for my enchiladas?  Yes!  Nirvana!  I am calm, at peace and am in balance with nature and myself.

Apparently I've been in need of a super injection of calm, peace and balance given my notice of how I felt at the end of the trip.

Good friends of ours met up with my husband and I in Paso Robles.  The four of us had no agenda other than to stay at an organic farm, do a little wine tasting, eat good food and enjoy each other's company.  Before we ever made it inside our "Bungalow" accommodations, the gas BBQ at the front door usurped all of our attention.  Within moments of its sighting, the four of us determined we were going to make our own great dinner  one of our nights there.  Hence our agenda was set.

Fellow Farm Resident, a Jacob Sheep

All the gourmand choices lay before us in this fertile area.  The next morning over our farm prepared breakfast we learned from our hosts there was a Farmer's Market that very day.  They guided us to a sustainable Fish Market, for the star of our meal.  Of course, over 200 wineries to choose from for our accompanying beverage.  Along the way, we tripped upon an artisan's cheese store.  And lucky for us, our friend who is always anxious to try his Italian, charmed a fellow Italian baker for a sweet ending treat. 

View from Still Waters Vineyards

Speaking Italian

What a luxury to take the time to really appreciate our seasonal choices. In my usual day in and day out routine, I rarely can spend an entire day devoted to such endeavors. The meal turned out to be exquisite and well earned.  It required all of our senses to pull it off (the whif of wine, touching for the firmness of a tomato, the inspiring sight of the seasonal vegetables and our salmon, and the listening of the first crackle of our risotto frying in the pan).   The journey of the day was really where our memories will lie.

So why is it I experienced a so similar an outcome to meditation?  Traveling to a new environment puts ourselves in a novel situation.  Our brains have no choice but to think differently.   There is focus and heightened awareness of our surroundings.  No room for habitual ways of thinking.  And by traveling with friends or family,  making it to a destination together, there is a sense of camaraderie and accomplishment that forges deeper ties.

If you want to recreate some or all of our weekend, here's the links to our destinations:

Hollyhock Farms Bed & Breakfast
Templeton Farmer's Market
Pier 46 Seafood Market
Le Vigne Winery
Still Waters Vineyards  (spectacular views and of special note, fine olive oils)
Vivant Fine Cheeses
Artisan  (a lovely American Bistro if you want a night out on the town)

Precious Dishes

If I had to evacuate my house for a fire, what would I grab?  After making sure my husband and I could get out safely, followed by our animals and our computer (we have a fire safe for important documents), my knee jerk response is a plate from my Depression Glass set my grandmother gave me.

The first piece of furniture I ever purchased as an adult was a lovely federal style buffet sideboard.  That should be an indicator to you of my love for my dishes.  My appreciation for beautiful dishes started back as far as I can remember.  On special occasions my mom and my grandmother would pull out their china for whatever celebratory meal was going to take place.  The festive meal was a great excuse to use these special pieces.  They both showed me how to lovingly handle the dishes including hand washing, never to put in the dishwasher for fear of destroying the paint or the gold rim around every plate. 

Pink Cherry Blossom

Collecting Depression Glass has been my grandmother's life long quest.  She would hit antique stores or garage sales at every opportunity in search of her beloved patterns.  By my merely tagging along on these adventures, by osmosis, I became just as enamored.  She cultivated my interest by beginning a collection for me...Pink Cherry Blossom Depression Glass.

If you are unfamiliar with what Depression Glass is, Wikipedia provides a good synopsis,  "Depression glass is clear or colored translucent glassware that was distributed free, or at low cost, in the United States around the time of the Great Depression. The Quaker Oats Company, and other food manufacturers and distributors, put a piece of glassware in boxes of food, as an incentive to purchase. Movie theaters and businesses would hand out a piece simply for coming in the door.  Depression glass has been highly collectible since the 1960s. Due to its popularity as a collectible, Depression glass is becoming more scarce on the open market. Scarce pieces may sell for several hundred dollars."

Once I married, my grandmother passed on her china set to me as well.  As I prepared my own special occasion meals, I repeated what my grandmother and mother would do...pull out my special plates.  I thought that was what everyone does.  Not so I discovered.

As I prepared one Christmas meal, I went about setting the table.  One of my guests suggested I not go to the trouble of pulling out the china and silver. What?  She said it wasn't necessary to make such a fuss.  But a pretty plate enhances the pleasure of the meal and the time spent with guests!  It signifies the specialness of the occasion along with celebrating tradition and etiquette of days gone past we so rarely get to visit or experience.  At least that has been my perspective.

I'm not sure what her motivation for making the suggestion was, but I've tried to consider that what's seems important to me is not necessarily so to others.

Even so, recognizing when something is important to me doesn't mean I should sacrifice it to make other people happy.  So what if the china requires hand washing and seems fussy.  It's the company and the celebration of our family traditions that remain important.  My dishes are sentimental but also hold an intrinsic value...they are meant to be used.

Since the Christmas event of long ago, my collection has grown even more.  We inherited yet another set of china and silver from my mother in law.  The buffet could no longer accommodate the all the dishes we accumulated.  Let me put it this way, I could (if my house were large enough), have a place setting for over 45 people...mix and match of course.  Out of necessity, my husband and I scouted out a new piece of furniture...a fabulous one-of-a-kind hutch from Lots of Furniture, a salvage store in Dallas.  When we moved back to Southern California...the #1 requirement for any house we were going to buy had to accommodate the hutch!  (It's as big as a small car and weighs about as much!)

p.s.  By the way, if any of you out there may have an idea of where this hutches origins are from, I am all ears.

Yes, it's a hand-carved gargoyle on the front of the hutch guarding my dishes!