Mel:
So I just returned from a thoroughly depressing shopping experience. I was shopping for interview clothing and encountered a sea of brown and white. For some reason brown is the color this season, and while I love brown in conjunction with jeans, an all-brown suit seemed kind of... well, let's just say I don't want to look like anything Shai pulls out of her diapers. Worse than that, however, was the sea of white linen suiting. Putting aside the inherent difficulty in finding the right undergarments for that, well, I have kids and that wouldn't stay clean for more than two seconds. Plus, pure white plus pale skin and rosy cheeks... ah, no. So I left empty handed.
I came home in a bit of a funk, of course; I hate trying on clothes just to find they all make me look gawky and red-faced. So I opted for a bit of comfort.
Whenever I am sick or just plain pissed, there is one thing that will ALWAYS make me feel better, and that is cooking. And comfort food is the best. Anyone who has been around me for very long knows that visiting me is a kind of tasty Russian roulette: 1 visit out of 5 I have just baked, cooked, or done both. Half the time these are "kid treats", i.e. cookies, cake, or other sugary, "unhealthy" foods. There are days I think one of the reasons I am surrounded by men is that they know when they visit they will be "forced" to have some of my various baked treats in order to please the hostess. Because, after all, manners are always a good reason to break a diet.
Now the holy trinity of comfort food is fat+sugar+carbs. If you are a woman, add cocoa and chocolate and that's all that is ever necessary. But since I have two kids and a husband, I opted for the easiest and most universal of quick comfort foods: cereal treats.
Cereal treats are essentially:
Fat (butter or margarine)
Marshmallows, and
Cereal (most famously rice krispies)
and, possibly, an addition of peanut butter, cocoa, or other flavor
Today I opted for Cheerios treats, because that's what my kids happened to pull out of the cupboard for me. A stick of butter, an entire bag of marshmallows, and a cup of peanut butter all melted together and then mixed with half a box of cereal. There's nothing easier in the world, provided you remember to grease the baking pan you are shmushing it into for cooling.
I quickly considered where the pan would be the safest while the marshmallow cooled, and thought of putting it in the bedroom with Chris so the girls couldn't reach. Then I realized that was possibly MORE dangerous.
So they are here with me while I cool. And assuming that the entire lot isn't gone by 5, I am sure that John will accept one of the treats I will "force" on him before the guys leave for poker.
Mel
Just call me Mel, everyone else does.
