Comfort Food

I have been thinking of doing a post on the restaurants in Las Vegas I most want to eat at (I'll do it another day) when I came across a documentary on HBO about Le Cirque. Since Le Cirque is on my list, I stopped to watch it. It was just an okay documentary (although the founder of the restaurant, Sirio Maccioni, has had a very interesting life) but there were a couple of things that stuck out in it for me.

The first was when the Maccioni family went to McDonald's for lunch. Yes, the owners of one of the most famous four star restaurants in the world ate at McDonald's. And what's more, they scarfed their food from the various bags and boxes with the manners of a starving four year old. Plus there was a prodigious amount of ketchup consumed. Now I have often been told that I should be ashamed of my ketchup use, that as a gourmand I should have better taste than to use the lowly condiment. I love ketchup and the fact that it is loaded with healthy lycopene is a bonus, but it has always been somewhat of a shameful secret that only my close friends and family know about. But after watching Mario Maccioni (the CEO of the Las Vegas Le Cirque) bellow for more ketchup, I no longer feel so ashamed. If the Maccioni's can appreciate the enhancement that ketchup brings to food, then so can I.

The second thing that I noticed in the film as that when the matriarch of the Maccioni clan was stressed (they were awaiting the second review from the New York Times after the first one when the restaurant re-opened was dismal) she ate french fries. She said, "As long as I have my french fries and wine, I'm good." French fries were her comfort food. Interestingly enough, while I was watching the documentary, I was eating my comfort food.

My comfort food is Campbell's Tomato Bisque soup with crushed up saltine crackers and some cheddar cheese stirred in. It stems back to my childhood when my paternal grandmother would spoon feed me this soup with oyster crackers in it long past the age when I should have been spoon fed anything. It is the ultimate in feeling loved and cherished for me. I adapted to crushed up saltines when oyster crackers became too expensive for my college budget and the cheese was an addition to give the soup yet another layer of comfort. It's like eating tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich without all the work. Now I only eat this comfort food when I really need its healing powers. When I made it yesterday I realized I was making it on the same stove my grandmother did, which added to it immensely.

My 'go to' for comfort if I need a quick fix is mashed potatoes. The serotonin in potatoes really gives me a happy rush. But because I like mashed potatoes just about any time, they are a comfort, but not the way that the tomato bisque is. I know people who like mac n' cheese for their comfort food and for others it's a chocolate fix. It's interesting that people have a food that makes them feel better somehow. I'm not sure I completely trust people who don't have a comfort food (although my mom claims not to have one, I have seen her eat an entire family sized bag of corn chips when she's stressed so I don't believe her. Besides, this is a woman who is a proponent of 'people chow' so I know she's part android.) My brother likes a cheeseburger when he's out of sorts and my sis-in-law runs for the Ben & Jerry's. I had a roommate who ate a box of Noodle Roni when she needed comfort while another went the grilled cheese route.

I know that food isn't love but isn't it nice to know that when you are sad or scared or depressed that there is some food you can eat that makes you feel a teensy bit better because it connects you with a time when you felt happy or loved or cared for? Maybe for you it's not a food but a song or a color or something. What is your comfort and what does it connect you with that makes the boo-boo feel better? Think about it and let me know. In the meantime, I don't need comfort, but the ketchup is calling!