Comfort Pigging Out

This post is not about gourmet food. It is not about foie gras or fine wine or even about cooking. It is about the comfort of good food and good friends. It is about the wonderful weekend I spent with my best friend Susan at her country home in Minocqua, Wisconsin for four marvelous days and the loafing, knitting, snowmobiling and EATING we did.

Sometimes it's so refreshing NOT to think about "good food," or at least what Food and Wine or Gael Greene considers "good food." Sometimes it's just nice to kick back with Sloppy Joes, brownies from a box, homemade cookies (three different kinds!), blocks of cheddar, wheels of Brie, cream cheese spread with cranbery chutney and crushed nuts, grilled cheese, vegetarian chili, chocolate popcorn, leftover Valentine chocolate, baby carrots and apples (just to make us feel better), hot chocolate with butterscotch schnapps, some incredible concoction that Susan made from the ingredients of the liquor cabinet, hamburgers with blue cheese and bacon, taco salads and chimichangas with chicken, ice cream straight out the carton with Magic Shell drizzled on top...I could go on and on. And boy, did we eat. It seems for large portions of the weekend that's all we did and it was lovely. Comforting junk food. Not so comforting that my tummy hung over my jeans en route home. But I don't regret any of it for a moment. Our prime activities included snowmobiling to lunch at The Watering Hole, checking out an ice fishing shed, where a kindly fisherman showed us his haul, checking out the action at the bars in town, where we met some genuinely NICE boys (what a change from the jerks we meet back East), learning to knit, which was a nice occupation for my hands so that I didn't eat quite as much, and watching movie after movie after movie (eight to be exact) was just fantastic. Susan's parents are lovely, gracious hosts and her cousin Lauren was a blast to have around. I might have to invite myself back. But next time, with a little more self restraint!