Comfort Food

I was looking over some of my older posts, and decided to revive Comfort Food, a post from Tuesday, September 13, 2016. It reminded me of all the comfort food from over the years, as well as family members, many of whom have passed away over the years. A few times have been updated for today. Example: the original post noted my Dad had died nine years ago; it's now fourteen years, which coesn't seem possible. I've also added a few photos. Enjoy.

I just finished off a bowl of butterscotch pudding. Actually, it was a double-serving of the stuff, but since two helpings were in one bowl, it only counts as one - at least, in my mind.

It was the kind of pudding that you cook, poured out in powder form into the milk, then stirred while it heats. I hate the instant stuff. My younger two love the instant chocolate pudding, and while I love chocolate, I can't handle the instant stuff. It never seems to set up exactly right. Plus, there's no film on top like the cooked pudding gets.

The butterscotch pudding was still warm, even though I'd let it cool for maybe ten minutes in the 'fridge, but it had gotten that film across the top. I know some people don't like the film (namely, the aforementioned younger two), but I do. It's part of what I liked about the stuff when I was growing up.

Why a post about butterscotch pudding? Why not? Especially when one is writing about comfort food.

Dad

Dad passed away nine years ago, in July, 2007. He'd known he was dying, and so did we. It was his fourth bout of cancer - first breast cancer (yes, men can and do get breast cancer), then prostate, then colon cancer, and finally, another round of prostate cancer. It was the second bout that took Dad. He'd beat it the first time - as well as the other two battles with cancer.

He and my step-mom Phyllis came to visit in April 2005. They'd planned to come in March, but ended up spending the month cleaning up a cellar after the water pipes had burst.

Dad and Phyllis

When they arrived, they spent close to a week, taking us out for dinner. We knew it would probably be the last time we saw Dad: the first night here, he told us that he'd gotten the prognosis that he had two years, at most. He lasted two years and change.

One afternoon while Dad and Phyl were here, they brought me to the nearby Publix for some shopping. Dad's never liked shopping; he'll decide what he wants or needs, hit the store, sprint around grabbing what stuff he'd planned to get, then head out. Left to my own devices, I'm the same way. In, sprint, get what I need, occasionally slow down to say hi to a friend or chat with one of the people fixing free food samples for shoppers ("Would you like some...today? The makings are on sale this week..."), dance around those taking their darn....sweet....time in front of whatever I'm trying to buy ("Excuse me...Excuse me...Excuse me..." Oh, heck, use the boarding house reach), then head on out.

But this time, Dad and Phyllis found their way to the pudding and gelatin aisle. I passed by as they were looking through the different flavors. I had a hunch Dad was looking for either butterscotch pudding (both of our favorite) or pistachio, his second favorite. I'll occasionally (read: once a year or so) eat pistachio pudding, mainly because it reminds me of Dad. I like it, too, but nowhere near as much as butterscotch. And yes, the pistachio has to be the cooked stuff, not instant.

I went past the other end of the pudding aisle a few minutes later, and saw that Dad and Phyl were still there. I found that a little odd (sprint, grab stuff, head for check-out), but let it slide. They were in a new store for them. Maybe they discovered some new flavor? Who knows, I thought.

But ten minutes later, when I was ready to leave and had been hunting for Dad and Phyllis, I found them still in the pudding aisle, checking out all the boxes.

"What's up?" I asked, coming up to them.

"Your dad's looking for butterscotch pudding," Phyllis informed me. "It has to be the cooked stuff."

"All they have is the instant kind," Dad added. "They have instant and cooked pudding in every other flavor, but none of the cooked butterscotch!"

A glance through the packages of both brands that Publix carried confirmed this. There was chocolate (instant and cooked), pistachio (instant and cooked), vanilla, tapioca, lemon - all instant and cooked. And butterscotch - which only came in instant.

"We haven't been able to find the cooked variety up in New York, either," Dad informed me.

Phyllis nodded. "It's true. We've tried getting it everywhere. No one seems to sell it anymore."

Butterscotch pudding - the cooked kind - was our favorite! It held memories for us. Like the time Mom flew to Florida for a week and Dad picked up enough butterscotch pudding to sink a battleship. There might have been a package or two left when Mom got back, but not much more.

I went in search of someone who worked at the store, and asked him about it. "Let me get the manager," he said.

A minute later, a manager arrived, only to inform us that they hadn't been able to get the stuff, but that he would personally try to find some somewhere for us. "But it might take a few weeks," he said.

This became a challenge for me. Dad was dying, darn it, and if he wanted the cooked version of butterscotch pudding, by God, I was going to find some!

Maybe two months after Dad and Phyl got back to New York, I found six lonely boxes of the cooked version on the shelves and bought all six, then shipped them up to Dad. A week later, I was in another store (not Publix, but another chain) and discovered that they had boxes and boxes of butterscotch pudding - the kinds you cook! I loaded up, then shipped these out the next day.

After that, once a month or so, I'd pick up a few more boxes at the store I'd located them at...until one day, more than a year after Dad and Phyllis had been here, less than a year before he died, Publix started carrying the stuff.

There are other foods that I've considered comfort food for years most of which have stories that go with them. (These stories I'll try to keep short.)

My grandmother - Mom's Mom - made a fantastic Oven Pot Roast, which I have posted in my original cooking blog, Confessions of a Foodie; the post was from January 19, 2013. Everyone in our family loved it.

One Sunday when my older three kids were young, I used Grandma's recipe to bake up her Oven Pot Roast. It smelled fantastic; by dinner time, everyone was definitely ready to eat.

I had figured, since I'd used a 4-pound chuck roast, that we'd have half of it that night, and the rest the next day for sandwiches and, finally, hash for dinner. Great idea - except that my oldest, who had two hollow legs, finished it off during the night.

Years later, when my ex- and I had split up, I was helping him find an apartment. At one complex (one that had an efficiency for rent), we stopped by the office manager's apartment so we could go to the nearby efficiency. Darned if his wife wasn't cooking a pot roast, the scent of which reminded my ex- and me of Grandma's pot roast. That clinched the deal on the efficiency! (Yes, he rented it.)

Grandma also specialized in her homemade oatmeal and peanut butter cookies, which she always seemed to have on hand, and which, when I was growing up, she'd always bring to our house when she visited, regaling my brother, sister and me of her childhood.

My other grandma had a recipe for her quick Mac and Cheese that she used to fix for my dad and his brother Don when they were kids. It is incredibly simple (macaroni and Cheese Whiz), and kid-friendly.

Then there's the Chocolate Cream Pie.

Greg, at 10

I had a boyfriend, Tom, who loved Chocolate Cream Pie; it was his all time favorite. Shortly after my family moved from Connecticut back to New York, Tom came for a weekend visit. He was planning to fly back Sunday night. But before he left, Mom insisted on fixing a large Sunday dinner in the early afternoon. Of course, I had to fix the chocolate cream pie, right? I mean, it was my boyfriend's favorite! And how difficult could it be? Pie crust (I'd use my great grandmother's recipe), chocolate pudding, and whipped cream. Easy enough, right?

Wrong! Somehow, I managed to get the pie crust to taste like undercooked pizza crust (while burning the outer edges of it!), I burned the chocolate pudding, and the whipped cream got whipped half-way to butter!!! Yeah, it was memorable!

When it came time to serve dessert, the pie was cut into six slices, and everyone got one. But one bite...I couldn't finish my piece. Neither could Tom, nor my sister, Mom, Dad...the only one who could eat it was my kid brother. At 10, he would eat anything that didn't eat him first.

"If anyone doesn't want their pie, I'll eat it!" he announced. Immediately, five plates got pushed toward him.

About this time, the phone rang; it was one of my sister's friends. Dad - who'd answered the phone - was laughing so hard about the pie - yes, it was that bad! - that he couldn't talk, and handed the phone to me. I was laughing hard, and handed the phone to my sister. The phone made the rounds, until it was finally handed to my brother.

"Yeah, I'll tell her to call you," he told our sister's friend. "But I don't know what they're all laughing about. Robin made a pie for her boyfriend - and it's great! And you know the best part? I get to eat the whole thing!"

For years afterward, whenever Dad would come to visit, he'd inform me, "I don't care what you cook, just don't make that Chocolate Cream Pie!"

I guess we all have comfort foods, and stories about food. Yes, I've got more food stories, but they can wait for another time.

In the meantime, anyone up for a good Chocolate Cream Pie?

Note: Check out my e-cookbook, Off the Wall Cooking.

Comfort Food

I just finished off a bowl of butterscotch pudding. Actually, it was a double-serving of the stuff, but since two helpings were in one bowl, it only counts as one - at least, in my mind.

It was the kind of pudding that you cook, poured out in powder form into the milk, then stirred while it heats. I hate the instant stuff. My younger two love the instant chocolate pudding, and while I love chocolate, I can't handle the instant stuff. It never seems to set up exactly right. Plus, there's no film on top like the cooked pudding gets.

The butterscotch pudding was still warm, even though I'd let it cool for maybe ten minutes in the 'fridge, but it had gotten that film across the top. I know some people don't like the film (namely, the aforementioned younger two), but I do. It's part of what I liked about the stuff when I was growing up.

Why a post about butterscotch pudding? Why not? Especially when one is writing about comfort food.

Dad passed away nine years ago, in July, 2007. He'd known he was dying, and so did we. It was his fourth bout of cancer - first breast cancer (yes, men can and do get breast cancer), then prostate, then colon cancer, and finally, another round of prostate cancer. It was the second bout that took Dad. He'd beat it the first time - as well as the other two battles with cancer.

He and my step-mom Phyllis came to visit in April 2005. They'd planned to come in March, but ended up spending the month cleaning up a cellar after the water pipes had burst.

When they arrived, they spent close to a week, taking us out for dinner. We knew it would probably be the last time we saw Dad: the first night here, he told us that he'd gotten the prognosis that he had two years, at most. He lasted two years and change.

One afternoon while Dad and Phyl were here, they brought me to the nearby Publix for some shopping. Dad's never liked shopping; he'll decide what he wants or needs, hit the store, sprint around grabbing what stuff he'd planned to get, then head out. Left to my own devices, I'm the same way. In, sprint, get what I need, occasionally slow down to say hi to a friend or chat with one of the people fixing free food samples for shoppers ("Would you like some...today? The makings are on sale this week..."), dance around those taking their darn....sweet....time in front of whatever I'm trying to buy ("Excuse me...Excuse me...Excuse me..." Oh, heck, use the boarding house reach), then head on out.

But this time, Dad and Phyllis found their way to the pudding and gelatin aisle. I passed by as they were looking through the different flavors. I had a hunch Dad was looking for either butterscotch pudding (both of our favorite) or pistachio, his second favorite. I'll occasionally (read: once a year or so) eat pistachio pudding, mainly because it reminds me of Dad. I like it, too, but nowhere near as much as butterscotch. And yes, the pistachio has to be the cooked stuff, not instant.

I went past the other end of the pudding aisle a few minutes later, and saw that Dad and Phyl were still there. I found that a little odd (sprint, grab stuff, head for check-out), but let it slide. They were in a new store for them. Maybe they discovered some new flavor? Who knows, I thought.

But ten minutes later, when I was ready to leave and had been hunting for Dad and Phyllis, I found them still in the pudding aisle, checking out all the boxes.

"What's up?" I asked, coming up to them.

"Your dad's looking for butterscotch pudding," Phyllis informed me. "It has to be the cooked stuff."

"All they have is the instant kind," Dad added. "They have instant and cooked pudding in every other flavor, but none of the cooked butterscotch!"

A glance through the packages of both brands that Publix carried confirmed this. There was chocolate (instant and cooked), pistachio (instant and cooked), vanilla, tapioca, lemon - all instant and cooked. And butterscotch - which only came in instant.

"We haven't been able to find the cooked variety up in New York, either," Dad informed me.

Phyllis nodded. "It's true. We've tried getting it everywhere. No one seems to sell it anymore."

Butterscotch pudding - the cooked kind - was our favorite! It held memories for us. Like the time Mom flew to Florida for a week and Dad picked up enough butterscotch pudding to sink a battleship. There might have been a package or two left when Mom got back, but not much more.

I went in search of someone who worked at the store, and asked him about it. "Let me get the manager," he said.

A minute later, a manager arrived, only to inform us that they hadn't been able to get the stuff, but that he would personally try to find some somewhere for us. "But it might take a few weeks," he said.

This became a challenge for me. Dad was dying, darn it, and if he wanted the cooked version of butterscotch pudding, by God, I was going to find some!

Maybe two months after Dad and Phyl got back to New York, I found six lonely boxes of the cooked version on the shelves and bought all six, then shipped them up to Dad. A week later, I was in another store (not Publix, but another chain) and discovered that they had boxes and boxes of butterscotch pudding - the kinds you cook! I loaded up, then shipped these out the next day.

After that, once a month or so, I'd pick up a few more boxes at the store I'd located them at...until one day, more than a year after Dad and Phyllis had been here, less than a year before he died, Publix started carrying the stuff.

There are other foods that I've considered comfort food for years most of which have stories that go with them. (These stories I'll try to keep short.)

My grandmother - Mom's Mom - made a fantastic Oven Pot Roast, which I have posted in my original cooking blog, Confessions of a Foodie; the post was from January 19, 2013. Everyone in our family loved it.

One Sunday when my older three kids were young, I used Grandma's recipe to bake up her Oven Pot Roast. It smelled fantastic; by dinner time, everyone was definitely ready to eat.

I had figured, since I'd used a 4-pound chuck roast, that we'd have half of it that night, and the rest the next day for sandwiches and, finally, hash for dinner. Great idea - except that my oldest, who had two hollow legs, finished it off during the night.

Years later, when my ex- and I had split up, I was helping him find an apartment. At one complex (one that had an efficiency for rent), we stopped by the office manager's apartment so we could go to the nearby efficiency. Darned if his wife wasn't cooking a pot roast, the scent of which reminded my ex- and me of Grandma's pot roast. That clinched the deal on the efficiency! (Yes, he rented it.)

Grandma also specialized in her homemade oatmeal and peanut butter cookies, which she always seemed to have on hand, and which, when I was growing up, she'd always bring to our house when she visited, regaling my brother, sister and me of her childhood.

My other grandma had a recipe for her quick Mac and Cheese that she used to fix for my dad and his brother Don when they were kids. It is incredibly simple (macaroni and Cheese Whiz), and kid-friendly.

Then there's the Chocolate Cream Pie.

I had a boyfriend, Tom, who loved Chocolate Cream Pie; it was his all time favorite. Shortly after my family moved from Connecticut back to New York, Tom came for a weekend visit. He was planning to fly back Sunday night. But before he left, Mom insisted on fixing a large Sunday dinner in the early afternoon. Of course, I had to fix the chocolate cream pie, right? I mean, it was my boyfriend's favorite! And how difficult could it be? Pie crust (I'd use my great grandmother's recipe), chocolate pudding, and whipped cream. Easy enough, right?

Wrong! Somehow, I managed to get the pie crust to taste like undercooked pizza crust (while burning the outer edges of it!), I burned the chocolate pudding, and the whipped cream got whipped half-way to butter!!! Yeah, it was memorable!

When it came time to serve dessert, the pie was cut into six slices, and everyone got one. But one bite...I couldn't finish my piece. Neither could Tom, nor my sister, Mom, Dad...the only one who could eat it was my kid brother. At 10, he would eat anything that didn't eat him first.

"If anyone doesn't want their pie, I'll eat it!" he announced. Immediately, five plates got pushed toward him.

About this time, the phone rang; it was one of my sister's friends. Dad - who'd answered the phone - was laughing so hard about the pie - yes, it was that bad! - that he couldn't talk, and handed the phone to me. I was laughing hard, and handed the phone to my sister. The phone made the rounds, until it was finally handed to my brother.

"Yeah, I'll tell her to call you," he told our sister's friend. "But I don't know what they're all laughing about. Robin made a pie for her boyfriend - and it's great! And you know the best part? I get to eat the whole thing!"

For years afterward, whenever Dad would come to visit, he'd inform me, "I don't care what you cook, just don't make that Chocolate Cream Pie!"

I guess we all have comfort foods, and stories about food. Yes, I've got more food stories, but they can wait for another time.

In the meantime, anyone up for a good Chocolate Cream Pie?

Note: Check out my e-cookbook, Off the Wall Cooking.

Going To Goodwill (When I Thought of Staying Home)

It's one of those rainy, dreary days when one almost feels like curling up on the couch, wrapped in a quilt, with a good book or movie. A cup of tea and homemade cookies wouldn't be a bad idea to go with said book or movie. And if one has a fireplace with available wood, that'd be great.

Before you ask, no, I'm not in the frigid north, where snow has been piling up on top of snow, on top of even more snow and horrible temperatures. I'm in sunny Florida, except that it's not sunny. It's cold (by Florida standards) and dreary and rainy. The high today is supposed to be 50 degrees this evening, 57 degrees tomorrow afternoon. (The meteorologist for WFLA, Tampa's NBC affiliate, just mentioned the "freezing rain;" the flip side is that it's also supposed to warm up in a couple of days.) My daughter, M.H., who spent 15 years living in Rhode Island with her husband and daughter, has informed me that it's finally nice out, at least temperature-wise. I still say it's cold.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I figured I'd do some tidying-up, as well as some writing, forgetting that I'd mentioned to M.H. that yes, we could go to the Goodwill retail store where her brother, my son M., works.

She remembered, though. She figured we'd pick up some stuff to sell on ebay or at a local music store. M. had picked up DVDs and CDs at the outlet store he works at with the idea of selling them. The retail store sells DVDs and CDs for 60-cents a pound, giving an enterprising person a chance for a decent mark-up. Earlier this week, he'd brought out the stuff he'd bought over the past month or so and checked with Amazon and Ebay to see what similar items were going for. Anything that had a decent mark-up, he posted. The rest he brought to the music store, sold a bunch of stuff, then sold the rest at a pawn shop across the street. Before you humph about it, he managed to turn maybe $5 worth of movies and CDs into $28 and change...and that's not including the stuff he has posted online! M.H. figured that if he could do it, so could we.

When M.H. called this morning, I sighed. I really didn't want to go out, but figured, well, why not. "Sure," I told her. "Come on over. We'll see what happens."

The retail store was a little farther than I'd remembered. It had been years since I'd been there, and while I knew exactly where it is and how to get there, when you don't go somewhere on a fairly regular basis, distances become a little warped. M.H., her husband B., and I talked about this on the way there.

"How much farther is it?" she asked. We were coming up to a traffic light at Ninth Street; the store wasn't too far beyond Fourth Street.

"Don't tell me streets!" she huffed. "Tell me how long 'til we get there!" Apparently, that's how they give directions in Rhode Island. M.H. and B. talked about hearing directions that went, "Turn right where the old Blah-blah restaurant used to be...yeah, it's the new Dunkin' Donuts now...and go for another two minutes..." I'd lived in New England for a number of years and had heard directions like that. How had I forgotten?

When we finally arrived, M.H. found a parking space and we headed in. Even with the chilly, rainy weather, there were still people wandering in and out of the store, which was basically part of a warehouse. Actually, Goodwill takes up the entire building, but has it segmented off into different spaces: two stores, along with other stuff, all warehouse-ish.

Even though M. had described the store fairly well, the reality was a little different than I'd imagined. It also turned out we probably should have arrived hours earlier, as much of the good stuff was already gone.

We sighed and got to work picking through bins. For a while, any CDs and DVDs I ran across got stuffed into the oversized shopping bags. At one point, an old man walked up to me, handing over a stack of CD cases.

"I decided I don't want these, and since you're buying a lot of music," he said before wandering off to stand in one of the two checkout lines. It seemed a little strange, but then, it seemed that a lot of the normal shopping rules didn't seem to apply here. You don't walk up to someone in, say, Publix and say, "I notice you're buying a lot of cans of tomato soup, so you might as well have the ones I picked up, too."

I glanced in the CD cases the man had handed me--maybe eight or ten of them--and every single case was empty! I'd already run across an empty CD and DVD case already, but the fact that he'd handed me this many empty ones...I put them down near a cash register.

In the end, while we didn't get quite as much stuff to sell as we'd anticipated, we did end up with a good start. M.H. even ended up with a working vacuum for $2 and a small flat-screen TV. (Note to self: Next time, we'll need an earlier start.)

After getting home, I plopped the bag of stuff I'd bought on the dining room table while M.H. tested the TV and vacuum. The TV didn't work, but the vacuum did. (At last report, the TV apparently needed a fuse, which M.H. was trying to find. We'll see how well it works.) After putting her stuff back in the trunk, M.H. and B. left. The rain started back, colder, drearier, and definitely looking like it would've been a snow-day, had we been up north.

Back inside, J. was pulling stuff from the bag and looking through the pile, shaking his head.

"You didn't check this stuff too closely, did you?" he asked. Apparently there were a couple of mis-placed CDs: an Eric Clapton CD rested in half of a Rolling Stones case; Pink Floyd rested in a Rage Against the Machine. Two double-CD cases sported one CD. I sighed. (Another note to self: Make sure to check the CDs and DVDs a little closer to be on the safe side.) After fixing myself a cup of tea, I posted most of what I'd bought on ebay.

I now have cookie dough setting up. I made several kinds of cookie dough, including my Grandma Hallock's oatmeal cookies and a bowl of gingerbread men dough. Should be ready to bake this evening. I wish I'd fixed the dough before going out so I could send some home with M.H. The stories those cookies could tell...

Here's to homemade cookies and tea on a rainy evening after a day doing stuff I hadn't quite planned. A change of plans can be a good thing...this afternoon was.

Dinner Time...

I'd planned to fix vegetarian chili this evening, but the universe decided otherwise. That, and the tofu was bad.

Now, I know there are people out there who are uninitiated in eating tofu. You might even be one such person. That's fine; we all have our food preferences. But trust me when I tell you that tofu has a bland taste and smell, or lack thereof. It is a lot like white bread or vanilla pudding: not exactly exciting, but it does work well in many meals, taking in the flavors of whatever it is cooked in.

So I pulled out everything needed to fix the meal...onions, peppers, a large can of crushed tomatoes, two cans of beans (one black, the other navy), carrots, garlic, and, of course, tofu. I usually drain the tofu in a colander while cutting up the veggies, so I pulled the top off the tofu tub and dumped it into the colander, then turned to get the cats' water bowl to refill it. By the time I got back to the sink, I was hit with a horrible stench that can only be described as a cross between a six-week-old litter box and really funky feet.

I looked at the bottom of the water bowl, then checked my feet, just to be safe. Nothing. Then I sniffed the tofu. Talk about disgustingly rancid.

Into the trash it went. The tub is in a plastic grocery bag, handles tied, along with the receipt. Fortunately, I had some homemade spaghetti sauce in the freezer.

But it got me to thinking about the other weird things than happen with food, things we end up looking back at and laughing at. Some of them are outright good memories: My paternal grandma used to cook what we called turnips, but what are really rutabagas, for Sunday dinner, so I associate the taste and smell as a comfort food. Your grandmother may have made the world's best mac and cheese.

And then there are the weird, funny food stories. For example: My maternal grandmother, Grandma Hallock, was the cookie grandma. Take any of her cookie recipes, and she'd bake them better than anyone else. I've only recently gotten close to being that good with her cookie recipes. My first attempt at making her oatmeal cookies, though, was a failure. The recipe calls for three cups of quick-cook oatmeal (now sold as "old fashioned oats"). So, even though the recipe didn't call for cooking the oatmeal first, I figured it was only logical that if it called for quick-cook oats, you had to quickly cook them first. I then proceeded with the rest of the recipe.

Later, when I took the mixture out of the freezer to cut and bake, it was still a gloppy mess. So, off to Mom to find out what the problem was.

"What did you do to it?" she asked, looking slightly puzzled.

"Well, first I cooked the oatmeal..."

When she quit laughing, Mom asked why I'd done that, then explained that if the recipe doesn't say to cook the oatmeal first, one probably should figure that it really isn't recommended. What can I say; I was maybe 12 at the time. It was an honest mistake.

Then there was the chocolate cream pie. Shortly after my 16th birthday, my parents moved us from Connecticut to Rochester, New York. A week or so later, my boyfriend drove up in my dad's old VW beetle. (We'd left it at a garage, since it needed some repairs before making the trip.) Anyway, Tom loved chocolate cream pie. What's a girlfriend to do but make her sweetie his favorite dessert, right?

That Sunday, the evening before he was to fly back to Connecticut, while dinner cooked, I fixed the pie. It consisted of three things: a baked pie crust, chocolate pudding, and whipped cream. What could go wrong, right?

Turns out, a lot. The pie crust came out the consistancy of a burned yet undercooked pizza dough (it tasted that way, too); I burned the chocolate pudding; the cream was whipped half-way to butter. He was impressed. Turned out the only one who could eat the darn thing without gagging or laughing hysterically was my kid brother. At 9, Greg'd eat anything.

For the rest of his life, my dad would tell me that he'd eat anything I cooked, as long as it wasn't that chocolate cream pie. Siiigggh.

Then there's the lasagna. There was a recipe for the stuff in one of the cookbooks I'd picked up over the years ago, when we first moved to Florida, a funky cookbook titled Country Commune Cooking, by Lucy Horton. I'd made the lasagna numerous times, and loved the stuff. But it needed something...

My oldest tried cooking it once to surprise me on my birthday, but instead of using meat, as the recipe called for, he used cut-up eggplant. Turned out great.

After that, the experimentation was on, and I finally developed a kick-butt vegetarian lasagna. It calls for tofu crumbles in place of the meat, and is absolutely wonderful.

Around this time, a coworker of mine decided I was the one he was destined to spend his life with. He was a nice enough guy, but let's just say the feelings were not reciprocated. He was merely nice...and boring.

One afternoon, several of us were talking about food, and I mentioned my lasagna. Turns out lasagna was guy's favorite food.

"When'll you fix lasagna again?" guy would ask.

"No clue," I'd respond.

One day, I decided to take the day off. Guy calls up to see what I'm doing, just as I'm fixing...you guessed it...a huge pan of lasagna. While I was on the phone, my youngest came into the kitchen and asked, "Are you getting ready to put the lasagna into the oven?" Of course, guy heard that and told me he was on his way over.

Great, I thought. Just what I didn't want after a nice, relaxing day.

The next day, guy made a point of finding me. "That was the best lasagna I ever had!" he gushed. "What kind of meat was that in it?"

"It wasn't meat," I replied.

"Okay, so it wasn't hamburger. What was it? Ground turkey? Chicken?"

"Actually, it was tofu crumbles."

He looked at me funny and asked what tofu crumbles were. After learning it was soybean curd, he got a horrified look on his face, gasped, and asked, "What are you, some kind of vegetarian?" When I replied that I was, he turned and stalked off...never to call or stop by ever again!

If only I'd known months earlier...