Comfort Box

Comfort Box

One-half cup of flour, one-quarter cup of shortening and an eighth-cup of milk makes crust. Apples, cinnamon and sugar go inside and I bake it.

Tastes great. Apple pie is comfort food. My mother made it. Everybody's did. Times were simpler. Times change, but pie remains. 

A quarter-cup each of sugar, shortening, molasses and milk, blended with a half-teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger and baking soda and two cups of flour make comfort food, too. My Aunt Minnie made cookies for Uncle Jim along with a chocolate cake every day. He worked hard, milking cows and mending fences, the big Irishman that he was. Potato famine brought his family here and he was never without again. 

My recipes are food for thought. My father's pancakes written down by him as I went off to college. Good luck he wished me as I left. I still make them today, not like he did every morning except Sundays when I was growing up, but when I need them.

Peanut butter cupcakes for my birthday, one-egg Jiffy cakes, Mom's soft custard and gingerbread all finish off meals of baking power biscuits atop chicken casseroles.

All these, sharing a permanent place on my pantry shelf in what I call my “Comfort Box.”