My, my how the tables have turned! It wasn’t so long ago that I was the comfort food provider. Ok, I wasn’t the best at it, that's true. But I did try in my own non-foodie fashion. My own particular way of comforting tends to be located in the shoe department. Whenever I needed a bit of TLC, be it from a broken heart, a lost job or just a downright crappy day, I wouldn’t even think of heading into the kitchen but would head straight to Barneys shoe department. Better yet, if in NYC, into the shoe Mecca of all shoe Mecca’s, Bergdorf’s.
As a matter of fact, I was in NYC last week and after a family luncheon that left me feeling rather low, I marched myself straight into Bergdorf’s, took the escalator to the second floor and personally said hello to every shoe out on display. And this took a bit of time too.
Don’t know if you’ve ever been to Bergdorf’s shoe department but it is huge. Stellar and Amazing! A world unto itself. By the time I’d greeted each shoe, said “Hi, I’m Annie and I totally get and appreciate you”, an hour had passed and I felt all better. Thank God it’s the looking not the buying that sets me straight, shoe prices being what they are today.
Getting back to comfort food though, spaghetti with meat sauce was my usual and if that didn’t bring relief, a hot fudge sundae made with frozen yogurt from our local deli usually would. That was pretty much my whole box of tricks.
And that’s why God created the Foodie Daughter...to right my wrongs! At 25 my daughter not only has a job (another “Thank God” here please) but also has comfort food down pat. Having just spent five days with her in her fabulous find of an apartment in glorious Brooklyn Heights I am here to testify. I don’t know whether her expertise in the area of comfort food is a result of her recent heartache, having a mother who served chicken five nights in a row, or if it is part of her inherited DNA from her paternal grandmother, Cecelia Chiang. I do know the inherited DNA from my side of the family would have netted a loaf of so dry it’s crumbling-inside-your-mouth Irish soda bread, which would bring little to no comfort depending on how much butter you slathered on it.
If there was a comfort food cook off, her mac n’ cheese would win hands down. Her oatmeal pancakes would come in second. As I write this my tummy is growling and everything is beginning to look bright orange. It is natural for our children to surpass us in life. Really. It’s why some of us have spent a fortune on private schools, so our kids would learn more, perform better and achieve higher in life than we did.
Her mac n’ cheese and the pancakes… a bonus! Especially since greeting every single shoe in Bergdorf’s, which, let’s face it, is more of a shoe nation than a shoe department, can make a gal hungry!
Closing Tip: Sitting in the Brooklyn Museum’s well-appointed café sharing a tuna sandwich on white bread, just like it was made in the old days, with Foodie Daughter when I see FD open up the Grey Poupon mustard and slather a bit on her tuna sand.
“You’re putting mustard on your tuna” I say like she’s putting toothpaste in her hair.
“Yah…it’s delish, try it,” she commands inserting her mustard up half in my mouth before I could say anything. By the time I chewed and swallowed there was nothing to say but delish.
Yesterday I made myself a tuna sandwich and spread a bit of mustard on it just the way FD did causing the following text flurry;
Me to FD: “What else r u putting mustard on that I don’t know about?”
FD to me: “Grilled cheese sandwiches and OMG asparagus!
Daughter's Mac and Cheese
Adapted from THE SMITHS
Serves 8
Ingredients:
1 pound elbow macaroni
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons all purpose flour
12 ounces heavy cream
12 ounces whole milk
3/4 cup cheddar, shredded
3/4 cup Gouda, shredded
3/4 cup Comte, shredded
1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, shredded
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup shredded Parmigiano Reggiano to finish
Directions:
Active time: 30 minutes
Total time: 55 minutes
Preheat oven and a shallow ovenproof baking dish to 400° F.
In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook pasta to al dente. Strain but do not rinse. Simultaneously, in 2-quart, heavy-bottomed stockpot, whisk butter and flour together over medium heat to make a blonde roux. Add milk and heavy cream; whisk until boiling. Add all the cheese, reserving ½ cup of Parmigiano Reggiano; stir until mixture is melted evenly throughout.
Add cooked pasta to cheese mixture, season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Remove hot baking dish from oven and butter it evenly while hot. Add entire contents to buttered baking dish, sprinkle top with reserved Parmigiano Reggiano. Bake in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes, until top is browned. Serve immediately.
Oatmeal Pancakes
2 cups old-fashioned oats or quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup gluten free flour
3 tablespoons sugar or honey
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Additional melted butter (for brushing skillet)
Preparation:
Combine first 6 ingredients in large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, eggs, 1/4 cup melted butter and vanilla in medium bowl. Add to dry ingredients; whisk until blended but some small lumps still remain. Let batter stand to thicken, about 2 hours. (Can be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover batter and refrigerate.)
Preheat oven to 250°F. Heat heavy large skillet over medium heat. Brush skillet with melted butter. Working in batches, ladle batter by 1/4 cupfuls into skillet. Cook pancakes until bottoms are golden brown and bubbles form on top, about 2 minutes. Turn pancakes over; cook until bottoms are golden brown, about 2 minutes. Transfer to baking sheet.
Keep warm in oven. Repeat with remaining batter, brushing skillet with more butter as necessary.
LA based Writer, Annie Stein, has written for C and More Magazines, NYTimes and is a regular blogger on Huffington Post. She runs creative writing workshops for at risk teens.