The Short Tempered Chef: Comfort Food the Easy Way

Mother Nature is being tetchy today. Clouds cover the mountains like damp cotton wool and a sullen rain has been dropping since before sunrise. The temperature will never reach fifty today. Well, I say to Mother Nature -- “Fine, be that way. I’m going to make comfort food while I hole up in my apartment and watch Netflix . . . nyah!”

My idea of good comfort food is a can of Bush’s Baked Beans with a piece of ham steak cut up in it. Not sausage or hotdogs or ground pork -- plain expensive ham steak. A big slice, with plenty of ham fat on it.Then I add a generous dollop of maple syrup and let it simmer on the stove for at least fifteen minutes. The beauty part is that if you get caught up in something you can let it simmer forever -- but you should give it at least fifteen to let the flavors get acquainted with each other. And I’m drinking a big bottle of Shasta Orange with it -- nothin’ fancy-schmancy today. It ain’t that kind of day. I’ll probably let my pot o’ beans simmer a long time, since a friend has sent me an interesting email in which he challenges me to read one of Charles M. Blow’s opinion pieces in the New York Limes without having to look up the meaning of any of the words. I’m taking him up on that challenge right now . . .

Pfui! There wasn’t a ten-dollar word in the whole melange. It was a piece of gateau.

I plan on eating my comfort meal while watching Samurai Gourmet -- a quirky little number about a newly retired salaryman who doesn’t know what to do with himself, until he discovers all the different hole in the wall restaurants around his neighborhood; places he never had the time or inclination to visit while he was working. The camera dotes on woks full of frying fish and bowls of steaming noodles and all sorts of Japanese culinary bric-a-brac. It’s a visual appetizer. It’s so stimulating that I have to watch myself, lest I begin chewing up my own plate and utensils after the food is finished.

Well, my little apartment is redolent with the soothing odor of ham and beans -- so let’s see how it all turned out . . .

I had it with a croissant, which turned out to be just the kind of light, airy, scoop I needed to enjoy this meal to the max. Yes, as sure as my name is Long John Bilgewater, this was a totally successful comfort meal. I’m full; I’m satisfied; and I’m no longer in thrall to the rainy weather outside. I’ve got Netflix, my recliner, and an hour of belching and farting ahead of me. What more could a man ask for?