Comfort Food

I don't know why, but comfort food seems to have some crazy unnatural uplifting effect on me when things just aren't going my way. This is a good thing. It's much better to turn to macaroni and cheese than to the bottle or something. It does lead me to do strange things like accidentally spending whole days in the kitchen and then collapsing from fatigue. I still think it's a healthy thing.

Example 1: Last week's mugging incident. Strangely, at the end of it, all I wanted was homemade chicken soup. I reaaaallllly wanted homemade chicken soup. I settled for an egg sandwich. At least it comes from a chicken. It certainly helped, but honestly, the soup craving lasted for days.

Example 2: Yesterday I was feeling pretty crummy for no reason. I had an ice cream cone and WOW I felt fantastic again. Ice cream was something that I was pretty ambivalent about until I came to Chile. For some reason watching every third person on the street carrying around an ice cream cone made me want to eat it all the time. From exquisite quality gelato to the soft serve at McDonalds, I love it. (Yesterday was a soft serve at McDonalds day.)

Example 3: Today I had a new class scheduled to start at 8:00am. I wanted to be there nice and early so I was rushing, nearly running down the hill to the bus stop. When I say hill, I really mean extremely steep and poorly paved and maintained partially cobblestone street/sidewalk. (On my way down I passed a young man peeing while his friend was laughing at him and two stray dogs copulating.) As I was nearing the bottom, I slowed from my light jog to a fast paced walk and at this point inexplicably fell over and tumbled down the street for a bit. I stood up, assessed the damage and decided that the two inch diameter scrape on my knee and my torn and bloody stockings wouldn't make a good first impression. Crap! And those were my last pair of stockings! Then I noticed the cuts on my hands and determined that I probably couldn't hold a white board marker. Also, even if I did arrive to class, they'd probably make me clean up the dripping blood before stepping into the classroom, meaning that we probably wouldn't start on time and that I might traumatize my student. I decided that going home and postponing the class would be best. Anyway, I went home and woke up the completely confused and disoriented boyfriend. He did a great job of cleaning out my wounds and holding me down as he poured vodka all over them. Yes, vodka is the closest thing to an antiseptic that we have in this house. Ironically, this house has EVERYTHING from mini whisks to an elliptical machine to multiple woks, various sizes of mortar and pestles, a barometer, industrial juice machine, designer pencils, construction equipment, but no. We have nothing to treat minor cuts.

Well, at the end of that debacle I really wanted some comfort food. It was of course, only about 9am, so I didn't really feel able to justify eating anything, let alone junk food. I just had breakfast and we don't really have any ready made comfort food in the house. I started rummaging in the pantry and what did I find? Only the best hot chocolate in the universe. Mom brought this as a holiday present when she came to visit in December. While December is a perfect time for hot chocolate in the Northern Hemisphere, it was pretty summery down south. I was more in the mood for lemonade. I had forgotten about it until today. I made myself a warm steamy mug and I must say, best comfort food ever, and it doesn't even leave you feeling that guilty. My belly is so happy right now. Mommy, I love you.

Buy this:



Now.

By the way. I have the best boyfriend ever. He just returned from the shops with about a million pesos worth of overpriced first aid supplies. Now, he is going to hold me down and pour alcohol all over my gaping wounds, again. Yay?...

Besos,
Allie