Discovering my comfort foods. . .

I watch Food Network a lot. A Lot! One thing they like to talk about is so-called "comfort food"--usually mac 'n cheese, ice cream, chicken soup, spaghetti. I've wondered sometimes at the rationale for the designation, though ice cream is a given. Chicken soup = illness, so that too. When I think of favorite homey dishes that evoke family, I come up with chicken fricassee, dirty rice, seafood gumbo. Not thing that are easy to turn to for comfort, since I don't make them like my grandmother did. (My dirty rice isn't bad--and no, it's not like the stuff you get at Cajun restaurants!)

So finally, reality hit, and I've been trying to look over some articles, look over the dissertation, print the dissertation in all of its tree-killing immensity (that's the epithet). . . But things were a little crazy at home, and with all of the beginning-of-the-month, only-paid-once-a-month grocery shopping that we have done recently, we still needed some things. So I made a list and sent my husband to the store with the kiddos (but at the last minute the little one needed me). I looked over the list, and behold: comfort foods!

--ingredients for a 7-layer bean dip: beans, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, tomatoes, pico de gallo, salsa, tortilla chips

--cookies

--doughnuts

--frozen cooked shrimp with cocktail sauce (an appetizer of sorts for me!)

Even the things that I put on the list because we "needed" them are comfort foods for me:

--frozen cheese tortelloni (which we had for dinner with butter)

--frozen portabello mushroom raviolis (the store brand is scrumptious! and only $2.09! what a great supper! :) )

--frozen vegetables: broccoli, broccoli & cauliflower, peas (great with the cheese tortelloni for supper!)

The bean dip was too labor-intensive, but will be consumed in the near future! :)

So. . . Any favorite "real" comfort foods? Things not usually considered? (Pregnancy cravings aren't quite the same. They vary with pregnancy and usually don't last in my experience. But they're an interesting subject unto themselves!)

And for tomorrow: Water. Just water. 'Cause all that talking will make us thirsty! Thanks for all the supportive words!

Dissertation Defense Protocol

If I have not already communicated the fact that I can be an awfully socially awkward person in certain contexts, let me do so now. I dread the odd social gathering at someone's house, unless I know most of the people who are going to be there, and even then, it can be cause for some anxiety. We're talking non-academic, even. So this is not just the pressure of networking. Oh no. It's not being able to answer a query from a person I don't know that runs like this, "Hey, you know that cake you brought? Are we going to eat it or what? Can I cut it since you're busy breastfeeding?" with an honest, "I was waiting until everyone--namely me--was finished eating, and I'd prefer to cut it, but thank you for your offer!" instead of muttering a weak, "okay" and then brooding about it for the rest of the party. . .er. . . weekend. It's deciding not to go to the shower at all because two were scheduled for the same day and you RSVP'd to the one given for the person you knew well, but not as well. I take comfort in my committee chair's admission that there are times that he has entered a home for a gathering and proceeded straight through and right out the back door. That's so me. So what am I worried about with the upcoming dissertation defense? Refreshments. Yup, you read that correctly. Because I heard waaay back--and again today--that the defendee (person on the hot seat) usually brings snacks or breakfast or something in hopes that the committee members are too charmed by the offering--or too afraid of crumbs escaping their mouths--to ask any difficult questions. Or as a courtesy, maybe. That was all vague. Anyway, it's been months since I've had any meaningful face-to-face interaction with my committee chair department head, and while I have asked a couple of times in meaningful ways what is expected of me, he simply will not say "some koolaid and a tray of brownies." So I'm in agonies over which snack would be too childish, the politics of pastries, what about the vegetarian (and what are his reasons for being vegetarian--do they preclude icing?), would it seem like a bribe--and a weak one at that, is it rude to come empty handed? (Except for the dissertation--there is that. . .) And that is my primary source of anxiety. What snack (if any) to bring, and how my choice of snack reflects on me. Literacy-chic, you are an idiot.

Where have all the green potato chips gone?

I started wondering about this after seeing an Arthur episode in which D.W. thinks she's going to die from eating a green potato chip. I remember seeing green ones all the time when I was a child, then they just. . . disappeared. I supposed that quality control has improved that much, or that the green ones had been genetically modified away. I never really missed them; they were a little disturbing and tasted a little funny, too. But today, eating some McDonald's french fries, I saw it--a fry with a GREEN TIP! Aaaaaaaaaah!