These warm-and-creamies all tend to be higher-carb, higher-fat foods that can make you sleepy, so I suppose that’s a comfort – eat a big serving, curl up under a quilt, and instant comfort!  All of a sudden, winter isn’t so cold and dark, and you’ve got some extra insulation to get you through the cold months!

  Nostalgia also seems to be a part of my comfort foods.  A pile of warm, fresh, corn tortillas will take me back, and I will happily eat ‘em up.  My grandmother always seemed to serve lamb chops with mint jelly on the side, with mashed potatoes (with the skins on!) loaded with butter – so medium rare lamb chops/mint jelly and buttery mashed potatoes takes me back to being a spoiled six-year-old allowed to sit at the grown-up table, eating grown-up food!

  But I have summertime comfort foods, too.  Dead-ripe tomatoes, eaten right off the vine!  Fresh black-eyed peas!  Fresh dewberries, complete with thorns and peaches picked that afternoon!  Okra, dipped in cornmeal and eggs, fried and served too hot to pick up – and finish up with home-made peach ice cream.  Can’t think of anything better.

  Our choices of foods, how they make us feel – I know that there is a lot of biochemistry there, neurotransmitters, insulin, serotonin – but those polysyllables don’t come close to defining comfort food.  Part of comfort food is the friends and family we share it with.

My daughter is getting married in March or April of next year. She is marrying her long time friend-they are both 30. She’s in TX, I’m in WA. We need some input into what makes a wedding special. It’s not money or flash, I know a few things. but what do you think?

What weddings have been special to you? We do have the option of indoors or outdoors.

Thanks for your input.