WanderFood Wednesday: Comfort Food

 

Comfort food is different for everyone. For my husband, it’s tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. For me, a giant bowl full of pasta (like this one we found in Fussen, on the border of Germany and Italy) makes me feel worlds better about life. But for me, nothing beats the combination of feel-good food in my favorite place: my home town.

My home town smells like sage, chapparal, oak trees and hay. It’s not so small that everyone knows each other by name, but we know each other by sight, and we know each other by the shared sense of this place is special that bonds everyone lucky enough to live there. And while there are everyone’s old favorite cowboys-at-the-counters diners like Ellen’s Pancake House and Mother Hubbards, it’s the new restaurants in town that are serving up what I need.

Cafe Succulent in Solvang is one of the rare restaurants that not only survives the ebbs and flows of tourist town commerce (so many places go under within months), it’s expanding. They specialize in comfort food with a southern/western/Santa Ynez Valley twist, like this meatloaf above. The thick slab of perfectly seasoned meatloaf (they learned the recipe from a local rancher) rests on a buttery southern-style biscuit, topped with house-cured bacon. Follow that by a sunny walk through the faux-Dutch streets of spilling-over-flower-boxes and couples holding hands, and you can’t help but feel uplifted. And if you don’t, there are at least a hundred wine bars within walking distance. Win-Win.

Nachos are one of my ultimate comfort foods, and while the best I’ve had are at Kauai’s Brennecke’s Beach Broiler, the close second comes with a real lime juice Margarita at Dos Carlitos in Santa Ynez. If you sit outside, the breeze carries the scent of the hills – and if it’s blowing the other direction, the scent of the feed store in back. Not a bad thing if you like the smell of livestock and horses, which I do.

Yes, I could tell you about the comfort foods I’ve had around the world – meat pies in England, daal in India, cold soba in Japan, fettuccine a la carbonara in Rome – but for me, comfort is one part a plate full of goodness, and two parts feeling like I’m home.

What is your ultimate comfort food? Tell me in the comments – I’d love to hear it. And if you’re so inclined, link up to the WanderFood Wednesday link party.

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My husband wasn’t too sure about my plan of inviting a mixed martial arts fighter to crash on our couch for a few days this week. Can’t imagine why. I was super excited – I mean, how often do you get to meet an MMA fighter who is also a nanny (or “manny” as he calls it), and a burgeoning superfoods expert? See, that’s the great thing about couchsurfing – you have a chance to meet really interesting people who can teach you something brand new. Like last night, when I learned how to make easy Thai Red Curry.

That’s Couchsurfer Mike giving his curry the Thumbs-Up, just after adding in a handful of fresh chives.

Mike is just what the Couchsurfing site is all about. Cool people freely giving (a couch) and getting (red thai curry dinner extraordinaire), but Mike came with an unexpected bonus he doesn’t even know about. Maybe it was the Goji berries we snacked on (aka. “the happy berry” – and No Mom, I’m not doing drugs), but I think it was more being required to focus on meeting someone new that lifted my spirits on a really rough day. So there you have it. For one couch, you too can have a great dinner with great company and feel the weight of the world very briefly lifted from your shoulders. Not a bad deal.

Here is the recipe I learned from Couchsurfer Mike for Thai Red Curry:

• 1 Tb olive oil


• 2 heaping spoonfulls of Red Thai Curry paste


• Chopped onions, and as many colors of bell peppers as you can find


• 1/2 lb shrimp


• 1/2 lb tilapia


• Salt (or chicken bouillon packets) to taste


• Chives or chopped green onion.


• 1 cup dry Basmati rice (and 2 cups water for cooking the rice on the stovetop)

1. Cook your rice first using package directions and set aside.


2. Heat the oil and add Red Thai Curry paste. Stir occasionally and cook until aromatic (ie. until it makes your entire kitchen smell amazing).


3. Add the onions and bell peppers and cook for a few minutes.


4. Add shrimp and tilapia, cooking until shrimp turn pink and tilapia turns opaque.


5. Salt to taste, and make sure it’s spicy enough (may have to add cayenne if you like it as hot as I do).


6. Garnish with chives or green onion.


7. Serve over rice and enjoy with a nice cold beer.

Did you learn any new tricks in the kitchen this week?  Share them in the comments, and if you’ve got a food or travel post, join today’s link party and share it!

Here’s how to join the WanderFood Wednesday Food & Travel Link Party:

Post a food-related post on your blog.

Include a link to WanderFood Wednesday in your post, like “Part of the WanderFood Wednesday Recipe Swap.”

Add your blog name and post title to the “Mr. Linky” form below, with a link directly to your post. That’s it!

 

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Sometimes you don’t go looking for a recipe. A recipe finds you. After my pilates class this morning (hey, food bloggers have to burn off those blog posts!), I was craving carbs. But I didn’t want to get on a carb high, followed by a creative crash-and-burn, so I thought “Gee, what do I have in the kitchen to curb the carb craving?” Sweet potatoes. Specifically, purple ones.

So I looked up “Sweet potato pancake recipes” on the iPad (handiest kitchen gadget since the toaster, I’m tellin’ ya), and discovered it’s kinda Southern. Which got me thinking: bourbon and Bisquick. Not being able to find the Bisquick, I reached for the nearest insta-pancake mix I had in the cupboard, which happened to be Trader Joe’s pumpkin pancake mix. So far so good.

I mixed 3/4ths cup pumpkin pancake mix with 2 eggs, 2 Tb vegetable oil, cinnamon, brown sugar and salt, then scooped as much of my baked purple sweet potato out, and added just enough milk to create a pancake mix consistency. Honestly, this is my favorite way to cook. No recipe, just feelin’ it. Then, I added a dash of bourbon and a handful of walnuts.

Three trial pancakes later (why do the first ones always come out UGLY?!), two perfect pancakes flipped their way out of the pan. Brown on the outside – and purple on the inside.

Eat well, travel often.

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