So now there is research to suggest that people with lower blood sugar levels have better memories and superior brain health compared to those with high blood sugar. That’s serious stuff, and a great cause of concern for someone with an incurable sweet tooth (like me)!
But the comforting news is – I’ll forget all about this alarming food-health connection after I polish off these delicious frosted brownies.
There is a cliche that those who are disappointed in love can find some solace in a sweets binge. Maybe now we know why. Or as the famous Nat King Cole could have said:
Unforgettable, that’s what you are
Or at least until I eat this bar.
Chocolate chips that whisper ‘Yum’ to me.
Now your name does not quite come to me.
In a few bites, you’ve dropped from my sights.
Unforgettable, make no mistake.
That’s what you were ’til I had this cake.
A delight I used to share with you.
Now I’m stuffed, and unaware of you.
And that means there’s more dessert for me too.
What is your “comfort” food?
Trail Baboon 
Good morning. It is distressing to learn sweets have a bad effect on my memory. I need some chocolate to help me forget that. Chocolate candy is at least one of my choices for comfort food. Would beer qualify as a comfort food? I’m not talking about heavy drinking or frequent drinking, just an occaisional bottle of beer to raise my spirits when I have some work to do that isn’t much fun.
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a bag of chips a bowl of chili and a cup of tea and im good.
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That does sound good, tim, although I’d want to specify that the chips be good corn chips.
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Chili is alleged to have a superior balance of protein, fiber, and carbs.
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A warming bowl of split pea soup, with a chunk of good bread, and a glass of Cabernet sounds good to me.
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You are such a good cook I would be intimidated about cooking for you, but I have a split pea soup that I wouldn’t be afraid to set before you.
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As with most folks, several dishes play the role of comfort food for me: tabouli, chili, a certain pheasant dish I used to cook, tuna hotdish and others. But without question, the dish that my erstwife and daughter prized above all was a pasta dish they called “Dad’s Spaghetti.” Although I worked out the recipe, it wasn’t actually a spaghetti dish and it really wasn’t *mine* all that much. But we loved it. When i am with my daughter this next week, she’ll surely ask me to cook it for her new family.
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shes got a new family? what happened to the old one?
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You going there or are they coming here, Steve?
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I fly to Portland Monday. Stay for a week.
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enjoy
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It’ll be fun to see Liam in his home environment. Have a great time.
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Have yourself a fabulous time!
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Rise and Enjoy Your Sugar High Baboons!
This Addictive Oreo research is distressing. Jim is right–we need some chocolate to cope! Perhaps some virtual chocolate for the Trail. I have always had a sweet tooth, like many on the Trail. However, I learned many years ago that the formula for disaster in my day is sweet stuff with coffee for breakfast. While working at an insurance company as a Key Punch Operator (now that dates me, huh?) someone would bring in donuts for the 10 a.m. morning coffee break. Some of us would have them with coffee for breakfast. At about 11:30am the sugar high would disappear and I would crash–moody, no memory, shaky, miserable. Complex carbs and protein are the only way to go for breakfast.
Meanwhile, comfort food? This is a LONG list–mashed potatoes, biscuits, and my favorite of favorites, toast and jelly. MMMMMM. I feel the comfort rush just typing this.:)
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If we are talking about something other than chocolate and beer, I would say home made potato leek soup would be one of my choices. It is a favorite main dish days on those days when an easily made satisfying meal is needed.
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Peanut butter toast, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, dark chocolate, waffles (waffles with peanut butter and a bit of lingonberry preserves is delightful), ice cream…
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I’m not sure I have a “comfort food”, unlike my roommate, who is very into her family food traditions. I guess lefse would count, as I associate it with the holidays (Roommate first had it at the Fair–once I convinced her of the difference between lefse and lutefisk–and now it features large in her State Fair traditions. Usually as breakfast). Coffee is less a comfort than a reason to continue to live. One problem is that I’ve been vegan for about a decade, but of course the foods I remember from childhood were all animal-based. There are good substitutes for almost everything–a couple times a year I have to have a vegan chili dog or vegan root-beer float, and vegan donuts are now trendy, thank you Goddess–but I have yet to devise the perfect vegan commercial sandwich. Seitan or portabella mushrooms? I can’t decide, and apparently no celebrity vegan cook has taken it on, not even the authors of “Vegan Diner.”
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Most comfort food is made of carbs–a Porabella and mashed potatoes could probably meet the need if you can devise a mushroom gravy that is rich and creamy.
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That’ll be the challenge, then. Good gravy is an art. I learned the hard way that Bisto and faux “turkey cold cuts” won’t do it, and Tofurky is a Cthulhian abomination.
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My SIL researched and tracked down the ingredients to make vegan italian sausage–I remember getting the gluten that Bob’s taking out of his products. I had to go off to a baseball game, but when we came home, she had made them. Not bad!
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cant you dream up a sandwich with oil based sauce, veggies beans and grains? fake cheese tastes like fake cheese but olive oil with a little of this and a little of that can take you where you want to go. those vegan cold cuts are good but the cost is nuts. a buck a slice for meat and 2 bucks a dog for brats… theres an opportunity there somewhere. i have a friend qwho is wanting to start a vegan restraunt , has lots of interest but is afraid to pull the trigger. wanna get involoved? i can connect you.
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I don’t have any money to invest and I’d be a lousy manager or a disastrous waitress, but if your friend wants a taster/guinea pig, I’m more than happy to help!
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OT Renee, the terrible problems that your husband is having with sleep reminds me of the episode from This American Life about a guy who sleepwalks. This story was made into a movie called Sleepwalk with Me. The guy in that story crashed through a second story window while asleep and nearly killed himself. To keep him safe at night they recommended that he zip himself up in a sleeping bag before going to sleep for the night. I hope your husband’s problems are not that bad, Renee, and that the treatments he is getting gives him some relief.
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Thanks, Jim. He is really glad to have an actual diagnosis. While we were in Fargo last night he dreamed that he was on multiple amusement park rides and announced quite loudly that we needed to do all those rides over because they were so fun. At least he wasn’t screaming.
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Pecan caramel nut rolls at the late, lamented Custom Coffee shop here in Owatonna. Just like mom used to make when I was a kid. Gooey, lots of nuts and cinnamon, fantastic when there’s a fresh batch right out of the oven.
I have to buy them a dozen at a time now, since the owner still does catering. just doesn’t run the coffee shop part of the business any more. I show up at the alley door (where her kitchen is), and hand her the money in exchange for the goodies. Almost like going to a speakeasy. “Psst! My sweet tooth sent me.” “You got the dough?” “Yeah, you go the dough(caramel nut rolls)?” And we make the exchange and I slip away (in broad daylight, of course), race home and have two with coffee, then try to limit myself to one a week after that.
Chris in Owatonna
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🙂
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Anything Mom makes. Rice hotdish, porcupine meatballs, soppins… Although, I was never a huge fan of zabree. (Yes, I know these are all listed in ‘Mom Code.’)
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I could venture a guess as to what soppins is, but have no idea what zabree might be. Care to shed some light on those, tgith?
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Soppins is our family name for chunky, thick chicken gravy over baking powder biscuits.
Porcupine meatballs are meatballs with white rice in them (so they look like they have ‘quills’). Mom would make mushroom gravy with them.
Zabree is a variation on a cabbage roll. It’s a large porcupine meatball, wrapped in cabbage leaves and stewed in tomato juice.
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On the soppins I was at least partially right in my guess of gravy of some kind, but I would never have guessed Zabree. I make something akin to the porcupine meatballs, a Chinese dish called lions head meatballs; very good.
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My mom and my grandmother both made/make porcupine meatballs. Sooo yummy. We do a tomato sauce with them. Mmm…meatballs…
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My dad’s macaroni and cheese… I’ve tried altering it when I see other glorified mac-cheese recipes (with, say, butternut squash, or three different cheeses), but nothing is like my dad used to make. Longhorn Colby, “just the right amount” of milk, salt, pepper.
Bread pudding, scalloped corn (another family recipe that can’t be beat), popcorn, apple crisp…
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Hot Malt-o-Meal or Ralston. With brown sugar. And if I really need comfort, add a glass of cold milk (although I’m trying to work my way toward vegan, so am cutting down on milk these days.
I won’t be online much this weekend… Parent’s Weekend w/ the Teenager. Who has finally found a job on campus — thanks for all good thoughts sent our way on this issue! Funny how she got a little more serious about finding a job when she ran out of money!!
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Supper tonight was pumpkin soup and some french bread. I have a sore scratchy throat, so soup seemed a good idea. Then peppermint tea with honey. Then coughdrops for dessert.
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You’re a wild woman! (Hope you are feeling better soon.)
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What you need, Linda, is some elderberry soup. If I knew where I could get my hands on some, I’d make you some.
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Husband and I just returned from Fargo where we attended a psychology workshop and “provisioned up” for the next couple of months with all the foodstuffs we can only get in Fargo and Bismarck. We got lots of coffee beans at Dunn Bros., lots of exotic cheeses, Lyles golden syrup, and Papdums at Hornbachers, Raw couscous, Turkish figs, and Arborio rice at a health food/organic store , a particular German Brandy I like to douse my stollen with, fresh fish in Bismarck, and loose tea from a tea shop called Steep Me. It is comforting to have all these treasures.
We also saw our daughter on this trip. She was so funny, complaining about being in a coed dorm. I was expecting to hear the usual complaints about rowdiness and such, but she was most annoyed by all the singing they do. “They sing all the time, night and day. Can you believe there was a barbershop quartet in the stairwell just outside my room last night at 11:00?! Then this one guy keeps singing “Sweet Caroline” to me outside my door while playing the guitar!” She has requested lots of comfort food for Thanksgiving, including a particular type of dressing with sausage and cranberries, and a Butternut squash casserole.
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