Comfort food

Today’s post is a simple tribute to comfort food. It fascinates me how every culture around the world has its own. When I was growing up my comfort food was German chocolate cake. Not just any German chocolate cake, it had to be the one that my grandmother made. She was a master at baking them. She once gave me the recipe so that I could make it myself but there was nothing I could do to get it to taste the way that she did. I think the missing ingredient for me was a bag of magic powder under the kitchen counter and a large tablespoon of grandmotherly love. Unfortunately, my grandmother died about a year ago or so. Last time I was in my hometown, she baked her last German chocolate cake and gave me half. The other half she gave to my two brothers, sister, and mother. They split 1/2 and I got to eat a whole half by myself. Although I probably shouldn't have eaten the whole thing, it made me happier than anything that I had experienced that year. Once my grandmother put a German chocolate cake in a box and sent it to me by FedEx. When it arrived, the box was full of crumbs. The cake had completed collapsed. I ate every single crumb with and maximum amount of glee. Here in Japan, one of the most popular comfort foods is curry rice. It's one of my second favorite comfort foods as well. Actually, it's probably third behind a well-made hamburger. I love the complexity of taste and the balance of vegetables and meat. Today I made chicken vegetable curry. I always eat my Japanese curry with a softly boiled egg. Today, while I was eating, I wondered if it was some kind of ironic cruelty that I was having chicken curry with an egg on the side. Whatever the case, I know my picture is a bit shabby but trust me when I say, the curry rice was delicious.