It's peas when I hurt

This is an example of when the headline came first. The article came only after the headline refused to leave my thinker thing.

I wasn’t thinking about peas. I wasn’t thinking about the phrase you probably thought of when you read the title. I was a little down about my recently-wrecked cute little green car, but I wasn’t thinking about what kind of foods might make me feel better.

It just showed up in my frontal lobe’s inbox.

It might have been beamed there by little extra-quirky ,inter-dimensional beings who like to make me seem much less rational than I normally … sorry, I couldn’t make it through the end of that sentence. I have a hard time claiming any kind of sanity with a straight keyboard.

I’m nutty and I’m good with it.

On to the article …

There are lots of different types of food folks eat when they feel stress or are out of sorts.

I have many favorites. Yours probably differ. Your mileage may vary.

Chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes with lots of cream gravy for one.

By the way, that is WHITE gravy—not brown gravy. Get it right you heathens!

You also may or may not know about the yumminess that is fried okra. You may or may not care. It’s big in the South though. In my first job working at a barbecue place in Texas I discovered that fried okra is also really good with … you guessed it … cream gravy.

Ice cream is also a popular emotional support food. Who doesn’t love ice cream? My intestinal tract, that’s who. Ice cream occasionally has the same effect on me that Alka Seltzer has on seagulls. Okay, I don’t literally explode, but you get the idea. It’s not anything you want to be near.

I also have a comfort food that gets a lot of bad press.

I love split-pea soup.

I know some of you cannot hear the name of that soup without thinking about the vomit scene in “The Exorcist”, but I still like it.

I don’t prefer just any kind of split-pea soup either. I like the Campbell’s condensed version with not quite the recommended amount of water added.

I like it in a thick and almost pasty consistency. Then I tear up a piece of bread and add the divided segments to the top.

Something about this soothes me—this is also why the title fits so well.

You can “yuck!” all you want, but you probably have a comfort food that would disturb me too.

Hell, some people like pickled pig’s feet (Is that “comfort foot?”).

Your dearest comfort food might be something as mundane as a pizza or a hamburger ... just from that “special” place.

“The burgers at Ted’s Hole-in-the-Wall just outside Poughkeepsie are to die for!”

(Most of the things in that last sentence are made up. There really is a town called Poughkeepsie though.)

Certain kinds of foods are also indulged in around the holidays.

Your belt is already keenly aware of this.

A turkey sandwich after Thanksgiving is an example of both a popular comfort food and a holiday digestible.

A turkey on Thanksgiving gently eases your mind into a complete state of relaxation—complete with open mouth drooling, quiet sofa snoring and pants button unbuttoning.

Doctors should use this as anesthesia.

“Eat this and count backwards from 100 …”

It would likely only work on us weird uncles though.

Pumpkin pie is my absolute favorite, but even that is in a tie with the chocolate pie my grandma used to make.

I wish there was a way to share a talk with grandma while eating some of that pie.

Heck, I’d just take the talk.

Now I need some pumpkin pie … or some pumpkin scones.

Ah, pumpkin scones …

I didn’t even know I liked scones until last year when I saw a plastic tub of them at the supermarket and thought, “Those look good, let’s see if I like scones.”

While I have heard bad things about English cooking in general, I found scones absolutely delicious.

Needless to say, that tub of scones did not last long in the fight against melding with my own personal tubbiness.

There are lots of Christmas and holiday foods though. Candies, cakes and cookies are a few. There are also casseroles, pies, stuffing and, of course, hams, yams and jams.

There is one holiday “food” that I feel I should warn the general public about though.

Fruitcakes are NOT to be trusted.

Fruitcakes were devised as part of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

“Tell us where the bombs are … Randy! (Ha! You thought the terrorist was going to be ‘Akbar’ or something vaguely middle-eastern)”

“No way, dude.”

“Okay, it’s the fruitcake then.”

“NO! Not the fruitcake! I’ll tell. I’LL TELL!”

All this really means is that fruitcakes are useful for more than just doorstops.

If you are the fruitcake-creator type who sends them out as gifts, don’t bother sending me hate mail describing all the ways fruitcakes are maligned. Send copies of that particular missive to your relatives. They are the ones maligning fruitcakes. They are also the ones secretly making jokes about you—even though I am sure they still love you, warty cakes and all.

I am just telling the truth and spreading the word about fruitcakes.

Takes one to know one I suppose.

I hope you have no uncommon trouble or overwhelming call to search out your particularly preferred comfort food. If you just happen to come across some of your favorites though, I hope you enjoy the experience as much as possible.