Comfort Food Memories

After a hectic week, in which we celebrated our anniversary, my birthday, and a wedding, I was feeling a bit cranky.  I'm behind on sleep, Kirstin is still in the process of being "degrammatized", and Emily is going through a growth spurt as well, so only wants to be held and fed with an occasional diaper change.  So today, in one of the times in which I could put Emily down to sleep and not have her wake up and cry until she was held again, I made poached eggs on toast for Kirstin and me. 

Poached eggs are a comfort food from childhood.  Any time I was sick and had to stay home from school, that evening my dad would make me poached eggs.  I didn't have the knack of making them for a long time though.  The ones I made were edible, but not just like my dad's.  Then I learned the secret by watching my dad.  You have to swirl the water as you put the eggs in, then the whites stay with the yolks better.  Now I make them and they're like I remember.  I wonder if I didn't learn the secret because any time I was in the kitchen when he made them, he had me start the toast right as he was getting them in.  Nice little sneaky tactic, if that's so. 

Now I make them for Kirstin and me for lunch sometimes on days when I'm feeling especially cranky.  I get cheered up just in the making of them, because of the memories.  I would also sometimes get poached eggs on an occasional weekend morning, usually before going ice-fishing.  So of course, that brings back memories of wood smoke, decoys, older country music (not today's type, think Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash), the little "chink" sound the spear made as it was rested on the ice near the hole, and watching and waiting for a fish to come in the hole.

My dad taught me a lot about how to play the decoy, how to move the spear in quietly so the fish wouldn't be scared off, and how to manage a small wood stove.  He would listen to my inane chatter and play games with me.  Instead of I Spy, which wouldn't work in the dark house, we played 20 questions and Guess the Number.  If I got too bored, I would go out and play in the snow on the lake, only to ask to be readmitted to the warmth 10 minutes later.  I don't know if he saw fewer fish when I was around, but I was always a willing fishing companion for him.

So, if you feel out of sorts, make some of your own comfort foods.  It helps!