regarding comfort food

A long time ago, I had a best friend named Joni. Both my daughter Katie and I loved Joni. We also loved her partner, Cary. And they loved us. It probably doesn't need to be said but I will concede that me and my Katie loved Joni more intently than we loved Cary and Cary loved us less than Joni did. But, still, for several happy years, we danced daily in each others' lives and it was a kind of heaven. When we broke up, it was a hard break, almost as bad as a divorce. When it was good, though, it was very, very good. When it was good, Joni and I used to have wonderful, ongoing debates about things that really mattered. Things like comfort food.

Me, all my life I thought comfort food was anything that I liked to eat when I was feeling a little blue, any food that I used to comfort myself. Like chocolate. Or pizza. Or spaghetti. Donuts could be comfort good. Cookies. Making cookies would be both comfort food and comfort activity. Smelling cookies baking in my oven, mmmmm. Comfort. Until I met Joni, I thought I understood comfort food.

One of my favorite comfort food habit was high butterfat ice cream. Once in awhile, when my dear little girl was extra unhappy, I would announce that I thought we were facing a situation that called for high butterfat ice cream. We lived in Minneapolis. There was an ice cream shop in St. Paul that had, according to the local newspaper, the highest butterfat content ice cream in the entire Twin Cities. Normally, my Katie and me, we went to Sebastian Joe's, a local coffee and ice cream chain. Also, we could get into the white chocolate mousse with raspberries parfait at TCBY. But in an emotional emergency, we went for the high butterfat content ice cream. I have no idea what this fine establishment was called. We never went there unless we were under some kind of emotional siege. And the ice cream was not the only soothing thing about going there. We had to bundle ourselves into the car, we had to head over to St. Paul. We had to sniffle and indulge in self pity on the way over. Also, we had a long time to speculate on the flavors we would choose once we got there. I kinda stumbled into this parenting trick but the ride over to St. Paul was probably the most important aspect of this homemade cure for a little girl's heartache. Knowing that good ice cream was coming, Katie would start to let go of her sadness, telling me, chapter and verse, the entire litany of whatever it was that was bruising her. I listened to her in the golden tunnel. I was at my best as a mother when Katie was sad. My love for her would grow more intense. I lit up inside as I amped up my love, trying to will her back to happy. I believed then and I believe now that my amped up love on the drive over to St. Paul was what cured her. Not the high butterfat ice cream. But, still, the indulgence, the decadence, of that high butterfat content. Good times.

Then we met Joni.

Joni, a genius, was/is an expert on many things. One of her primary areas of expertise is food. Joni loved food. She considered herself a gourmet cook and an advanced gourmand. She's no longer my friend. I love her and miss her and I always will. But that's another story, or two or three.

The relevant point, related to Joni, is that one day she overheard me begin a spiel for my unhappy child, dangling the trip over to that special ice cream store in St. Paul because my Katie was unhappy. Joni asked if she could come along. She was surprised to learn that there was an ice cream store in the Twin Cities that she had not yet discovered. Joni, like all wisewomen, understood ice cream's curative power.

"Katie, my love, my plumkin, my kitten, my dove" I began, "I think we have a situation here that calls for high butterfat ice cream. What do you think?"

Katie always agreed to go for ice cream, no matter how upset she was. In these days. Things changed later. Joni had been babysitting and she was a bit upset herself, anxious that she had not been able to console Katie. When I walked in to pick up my kid, she burst into tears, telling me about the injustice that had befallen her that day.

Like I said, Joni wanted to come with us for the ice cream. Sure, I agreed, come along.

In the car, I chattered about comfort food. Just talking, being me out loud. Sometimes I would turn on my chatter to distract Katie. Quite a lot of times, this worked. She was often absorbed by my rambling nonsense.

Well, I'm losing steam here. I have a bunch of stuff I have to get done yet today. I'll fast forward.

We learned on this drive with Joni that, according to her, comfort food had to be white.

She insisted that chocolate ice cream could not be comfort food because it was not white.

I thought she was kidding. What about peanut butter toast? I asked, indignant. What about tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches?

Nope, said Joni. Comfort food has to be white or very nearly white. Mashed potatoes and gravy with turkey. Buttered toast (the bread had to start out white). Pasta with white sauce but not with red. A tuna melt could be comfort food.

How could ice cream, especially chocolate, not be a comfort food?

Joni was a wise, brilliant woman. This is the only area in which I detected her underlying insanity.

Sugar cookies were comfort food. Gingerbread was not.

We returned to the topic many times. I so wanted her to yield, to change her position. My old anxiety is rising as I write this. Joni and I have lost touch with one another (she lives in Sebastopol, it would be so easy to see her again)

You could count a bagel with cream cheese, even if you added lox, according to Joni, because it was mostly white.

My Katie adored Joni. Sure, a debate about comfort food is unimportant. Or is it? Comfort is a central aspect of mothering. It rocked the mother in me to have one of my core mothering tools challenged. I wanted Joni to see comfort food my way. I still do. How could she limit comfort food to white? Please take this back, Joni. By some miracle, find my blog, read this post and allow that peanut butter toast with tea on an overcast, rainy day is comfort.

Well, I guess Joni would allow that peanut butter toast with tea could be comfort. But not comfort food.

This is driving me crazy all over again.

Joni is wrong. Peanut butter toast is comfort food.

I never buy bread these days. I control my carbohydrate intake carefully to manage my diabetes. I go for weeks, months even, without thinking about bread or pasta. Lately, I've been craving something. Craving, craving, craving. Tidying my kitchen a day or two ago, I noticed that I have a jar of peanut butter, unopened, in the cabinet. Eyeballing the peanut butter was almost unconscious. The peanut butter began to work me. I have been arguing with myself about opening the peanut butter. I have looked at the nutritional information a half dozen times, noting how many crabs are in a tablespoon of peanut butter. After I look at the label, noting the carb count, I mentally picture opening the jar, eating a tablespoon of butter. And then what?