Comfort Food

Allergy season is upon us here in LaLa land (probably everywhere)...and it's something I’ve only recently been gifted.  It appears that AARP is not the only luminous treat from the “Old age gift basket” one receives after THE BIG transition to (I can’t say it out loud, nor can I type it… but it’s ½ off a hundred and a year more than 49). Having allergies is a lot worse than I ever imagined. For starters, it keeps you up at night trying to gauge when the left nostril will unplug so that it doesn't settle on your pillow, making sure to quickly turn over so that the right nostril can have it’s go at it!   Switching back and forth…all night long (screaming at that inner child who wanted so desperately to be an adult.)  Then there’s all of that hysterical sneezing! Is it me, or do sneezes (wouldn’t it be funny if the plural for that was sneez-I?) actually get louder with allergies? I sneezed (which technically should be snoozed) the other night so loud that my neighbor kicked the wall that separates our apartments! I think a picture had fallen or something.  It’s ridiculous what these allergies will do to you and to those unlucky enough to share a wall with you.

Well, after another one of those nights, I woke up feeling a little sad.  I was missing my mom. It’s been a little over 4 years since she was taken via the Cancer Trolley, and for some reason…today was going to be another one of those days where I just really wanted her to scream at me and tell me to get out of bed, that it was time for me to get up for school!

I hated waking up in the morning.  Like most kids, the warmth of my Flintstones comforter was a lot more appealing to me than getting up at the crack of dawn to be dragged out of the house and off to school! I remember pleading with my mom, telling her that I was too sick to go to school on this particular day.  I had cleverly (or foolishly, as I see it now) taken the shade off the lamp next to my bed, and turned the light on.  I pressed the light bulb up to my forehead.  As the light quickly warmed up, so did my forehead…and THAT was a sign of a fever in our house!

I could smell the French toast from the kitchen.  Or was it my forehead? No, it was the kitchen (my forehead doesn't have cinnamon); the butter and that cinnamon wafting through the air! This was my mother’s way of luring us all out of bed in the morning; fresh, thickly cut bread, drenched in an egg wash of vanilla and cream with a splash of sugar and cinnamon!  My mom made the best French toast in the neighborhood (but to me, it was the world!) I summoned her to my bunk bed, feigning illness and offering my forehead as proof.  How silly of me...I could never pull the wool over my mom’s eyes. Unfortunately, I wasn't the first child born in our house.  I have an older brother whom, I'm pretty sure would not have forgotten to put the lamp shade back on the lamp! I never was good at acting…and I’m still not! I made the best of it though... I got to have insanely delicious French toast before heading off to prison, I mean school.

So there I was, entombed in the memories of my childhood while I scratched at my itching throat with the back of my tongue (and how annoying is that, if you're in the same room with someone doing it?)  It was pretty obvious now, I was really missing my mother big time.

Suddenly a light went off in my head (probably the same one I used to fake a fever)!  I decided to gather the ingredients and whip up a breakfast of comfort food…French toast, ala my mom!  I even ground the cinnamon with my magic bullet and used whole eggs (not just whites) and cream! Plus, about a week or so ago, I had purchased FRENCH TOAST BREAD (that's actually what they call it) and put it in the freezer ...apparently just for a moment like this! When it was done, I savored every last bite. The aroma literally washed away the sadness (well, with the aid of perhaps a tear ...or maybe two).  Then it dawned on me, why do I deprive myself of food like this?  It was like having Cinnabon for breakfast!

It had been years since I had eaten French Toast, and I had really forgotten how much I loved it...but I had not forgotten how much I loved my mom and how much I miss her.

It’s true…there really is such a thing as COMFORT FOOD!