Comfort Foods

How do I love Nigella? Let me count the ways. Sometimes she’s bigger, and some times she’s smaller, but she’s always incredibly beautiful. She is incredible intelligent and well-educated, and has had some incredibly hard knocks (including the death of her first husband) and survived with consummate grace.

She is a mother over 40 who oozes sex appeal, admits to cooking pasta for herself to eat in bed while watching television, and deep fries candy bars in batter. Most important, in an age of molecular gastronomy and foodie preciousness, she cooks food that is simple, sensuous and exactly what you were yearning for but couldn’t name until you saw the recipe.

Wellness Soup? I dunno...I am more inclined to something that might be called, This’ll Kill Ya Soup! But, my darling Bill picked it out from Lorraine Wallace’s, Mr. Sunday's Soups, a book she lovingly wrote to celebrate her life with Chris Wallace – Mr. Sunday himself.

Everyone knows Chris Wallace – His Sunday show on Fox News is one of the brighter DC shows on TV. We met Chris and Lorraine in Martha’s Vineyard when they would come up to visit his dad, Mike Wallace – another Wallace that could comfortably be called Mr. Sunday.

But, Wellness Soup??? I just can’t believe I am about to make Wellness Soup, but before I make this righteous leap into tasty nutrition, let me enjoy the emotional nourishment of Lorraine’s charming cookbook.

In his forward, Chris refers to his extended family as a version of the Brady Bunch coming together around the kitchen table. Sunday Soup became a tradition - or a ploy – to create treasured private family moments together each week. Lorraine’s book is filled with charming stories of her family and friends, which does indeed bring love to each recipe.

I taught myself to cook over 7 years ago and I imagined over those first culinary delights that I’d eventually become better at the art. Alas, it seems my initial joy at creating lovely meals for my man has never really progressed past the basics of following  a recipe and, over the last year, become something of a drag. For those of you whose job it is to get dinner on the table every night, I’m sure you share my pain in coming up with new and tasty ways to cook the same old ingredients. (Working at a food zine has only contributed to my malaise.) I used to enjoy the process of preparing a new dish, but now I find myself more and more disappointed with the results. Mostly because the ½ hour of eating rarely justifies the hours of cooking. Not that my food comes out bad, it just isn’t as extraordinary as I continually hope it will be.

My inherent laziness and current lack of enthusiasm compelled me to purchase The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever, a fairly large tome of over 500 recipes that require very little effort to convert everyday items into comfort food. My husband, who rarely comments on my cooking, has been loving dinner lately. Partly because the meals are simple and hearty (he's from the Mid-West, nuff said) and partly because the mess left behind – I cook, he cleans – has been quite minimal. A win-win situation for him. There’s just something about throwing a bunch of ingredients in a pot, walking away and returning a few hours later to a scrumptious, yummy meal that’s really working for me right now. Plus, it makes the house smell wonderful for hours.

I can’t exactly remember when I met Caroline as this whole online food world introduces you to so many people on a regular basis. But I do remember this: instant connection. Bright. Fun. Sharp. All the qualities I love in friends, and the fact that she knows food made it all the better.

So when she told me she was writing a book, Twenty-Dollar, Twenty-Minute Meals, I couldn’t help but get excited. But little did I know this book would actually help me. As in I-need-something-quick-n-easy-but-still-delicious kind of help, and early on while reviewing the galley of the book I noticed myself actually cooking from it. And it’s not that I don’t mean to cook from the books written by my friends, but after spending all day in the studio with food I don’t usually get excited enough to step into our kitchen at home. Caroline has changed this.

I wrote her a quick email and thanked her for really amazing solid recipes that feature ingredients that get me excited. And then I thanked her for the Cacio e Pepe recipe that has literally become a staple for us. As in once-a-week, as in super easy and delicious. And while I’ve tried quite a few recipes for this dish that features a delicious play between cheese and black pepper, I must tell you that this is my favorite and you will absolutely want to follow her steps for toasting. It makes all the difference in the world. Seriously.  (And yes, I was lazy once and tried to skip it and it just wasn’t the same, trust me on this).