Deseret News, Wed., January 13-14, 1993

EVERYONE HAS OWN IDEA OF ULTIMATE COMFORT FOOD

“The best thing about bad weather is how good it makes soup taste,” I told my boy one stormy day as he reluctantly sat down to what I considered the ultimate comfort food—a steaming bowl of vegetables with bits of beef and broth.

Apparently, the weather hadn’t gotten bad enough to convince the world’s pickiest eater, who also happens to be my 15-year-old son, to lift his spoon.

“So that’s why you start peeling carrots every time it rains!” he said in a voice as dry as the untouched crackers on his plate.  “So you can save the runoff in the barrel to make soup.”

If there hadn’t been the slightest chance he was just kidding, I would have suggested he try an alternate menu, like bread and water, for the rest of his life.

Instead, I just smiled and gave him kitchen duty for a month.  Unfortunately, he didn’t appreciate my generosity.  

“When was the last time you ate watermelon?” he had to ask. 

If I have an Achilles’ heel where food is concerned it’s watermelon.  Once during my childhood, when my school’s lunchroom monitor told me I couldn’t leave the cafeteria until I’d finished my fruit cup, I threw up.

“OK!” I surrendered.  “I’ll never make soup again.  Next time it storms, I’ll serve cold cuts with ice cream, and we’ll all sit around eating ‘til our lips turn blue.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” he countered.  “Next time it storms, let’s go out for pizza.  That way you won’t have to spend the day stewing over what to cook.”

“Ha!” I croaked in honor of his pun.  And then, I smiled for real. It’s pretty hard to stay mad at a kid who’s so considerate.  “How come it’s taken me so long to figure out that, from your point of view, pizza is the ultimate comfort food?”

“Because it isn’t!” he said with a voice as smooth as olive oil.  “From my point of view, the ultimate comfort food is watermelon.  “But I’d never try to make you eat something you couldn’t stand!

To my credit, I did learn to like watermelon later in life!