Comfort Food

What is comfort food?

Comfort means something different to everyone.

For me comfort is the foods

that my mother cooked when I was young

🥘

On my birthday my comfort foods were

Blueberry muffins and spaghetti

The special foods I got

Were the life of my party

🍝

Another favorite for me was mom’s fried chicken

I enjoyed getting chicken broasted with all the trimmings

But my mom’s chicken was my favorite

Complete with the white gravy she made from the drippings

🍗

Still another favorite I had was chicken soup with dumplings

I remember coming in from playing in the snow

A warm bowl of chicken with fluffy dumplings

Was just the thing to dispel the cold

🍲

I’ve eaten foods from around the world

And tried many things

But the foods my mom cooked for me

Are the ones I find comforting

🥪

It’s been many years since my childhood

And I’ve cooked foods of a wide variety

I’ve never attempted my mom’s fried chicken

With mashed potatoes and gravy

🥔

My son doesn’t like mashed potatoes

So that comfort food might not be popular

But my son likes spaghetti

Cooked just the way I remember

🍝

One of my son’s favorite meals, though

Is chicken soup with dumplings

I don’t know if it’s the same way my mom made it

But I know my son loves it from his gushings

🍜

My son has a few foods he wants regularly

I have written my recipes for each food he covets

In a Google docs that I have shared with him

The notes I wrote revealing most of my secrets

🧅

He isn’t very interested in learning to cook them yet

But I hope one day he will make his favorite dishes

For his own precious children

Maybe he’ll tell them about his own childhood wishes

🥘

He will know how many ounces of carrots go in the soup

He will know how much chicken I added

How many pounds of potatoes go into the broth

And how many onions I included

🥕

But the one ingredient

That completes each recipe I make

Is something you can’t buy at the grocery store

It’s also something you could never fake

🥖

The ingredient is the secret tool of each mom

Or each grandmother or dad

Each caretaker possesses the key

It is something not everyone would add

🗝

The ingredient included in the comforting foods of our youth

The dishes that make us feel taken care of

The foods we wish for when we are cold and hungry

That secret ingredient is love.

❤️