Writing Wizard

What constitutes a comfort food? According to Wikipedia, a reputable source if ever there was one, “Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may apply to a specific culture.” I’ve also heard people say that a comfort food needs to be warm, or needs to be cheesy, or anything along those lines. From my experience, it’s a specific food you can eat that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside- whether from enjoyment of the taste, or happy childhood memories, or appealing to base human needs like the love of carbohydrates.

So, I’m taking what Wikipedia listed as “American comfort foods” and ranking them according to my personal tastes. Feel free to agree or disagree (in the comments if you want, or you can yell your opinion from the rooftops) but given that I’m sitting here on my laptop feeling hungry, this seemed like a good idea.

32. Tamale pie
I’ve never liked tamales, so it stands to reason I wouldn’t like them in pie form either.
31. Grits
They’re very… gritty. I don’t like them either.
30. Red beans and rice
Okay, so I’m not from the South, which is probably why these are so low. I’ve rarely had them if ever, and they really don’t scream “comfort” to me.
29. Chicken soup
I know I’m in the minority here, but I’ve never really been able to stand chicken noodle soup (and other varieties). It’s soggy and salty and ruins its ingredients.

28. Peanut butter
Is peanut butter good with things? Yes. Is it a food, let alone a comfort food? I’d say no.
27. Pepperoni rolls
I’ve never really had these, but I imagine they’re kind of like hot pockets without all the sauce. Either way, I’m not a big pepperoni fan.
26. Chicken and dumplings
I’ve had good chicken and dumplings on occasion, but usually it’s a soggy lump of dough in sodium-drowned chicken.
25. Chili mac
Why would you ruin macaroni and cheese? That shouldn’t be possible.

24. Corned beef and cabbage
There is a time and a place in my house for corned beef and cabbage. They taste really good on St. Patrick’s day. Any other time, I could take or leave them.
23. Chowders (Clam chowder, Shrimp chowder, Corn chowder, etc.)
I’ve had some pretty good chowder, and some pretty bad chowder. It balances out to “okay.”
22. Chili
I tend to like the red meat of chili (given that it isn’t too spicy) compared to chowder, but they rank about the same.
21. Cornbread
Cornbread is pretty good, but it serves as an accessory to chili.

20. Biscuits and gravy
When done right, delicious. When done wrong, soggy.
19. Tuna casserole
As long as the tuna isn’t too overpowering, it’s warm and comforting. As a comfort food should be.
18. Casseroles
However, casseroles other than tuna (chicken, tater tot, etc.) are superior.
17. Green bean casserole
This is the best one though, it tastes like Thanksgiving.

16. Cupcakes
Cupcakes can be really really good. However, they also have the occasional propensity to be nothing but artificial tasting cake buried under a mountain of frosting. Don’t do that.
15. Cake
Less likely to be buried under chemical frosting.
14. Chocolate chip cookies
If the cookies are fresh? Definitely a comfort food. Warm, melty chocolate chip cookies are heaven.

13. Pizza
A true childhood staple. Carbs, sauce and cheese. Delicious.
12. Pot roast
When well cooked and tender, this is definitely a comfort meal. However, it’s usually paired with another food that ends up higher on this list.
11. Meatloaf
Something about this is just really delicious to me. Sure, it’s a vaguely concerning brick of meat slathered in ketchup, but it’s a brick that reminds me of childhood.
10. French fries
Take a slice of potato, fry it in oil, add copious amounts of salt, and you have one of the true American foods. Good from fast food, or even better homemade. Best with ketchup.

9. Burrito
The question: How many things can we stuff inside a tortilla? The answer: yes. Preferably with guacamole.
8. Apple pie
Another “American” food, and one of the most comforting desserts. Tart apple and sweet crust pair well together. My mom is really good at making this, so it ranks especially high for me. Especially good if you add caramel, or make it a la mode.
7. Fried chicken
There’s something so homey about the crunchy, salty outside of fried chicken paired with meat inside. It’s an all-purpose meal that never fails to fill you up.

6. Chicken fried steak
Fried chicken, but better. Especially with gravy.
5. Ice cream
One of the most customizable, all-purpose desserts ever to exist. Ice cream is the one dessert I could never possibly get tired of. Tillamook is the best variety, but any chocolate or cookie dough flavor is among the best. And vanilla pairs with anything.
4. Lasagna
While homemade lasagna is otherwise my favorite meal, I’m ranking meals by comfort food, not by how much I love them overall. And also, so many people have only ever had the frozen stuff that won’t hold a candle to lasagna’s real potential. Lasagna is amazing, but doesn’t get the #1 spot here.

3. Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup
This is when it gets hard- my three favorite comfort foods. Grilled cheese really gets the cheese fix, especially when you use the right cheese (cheddar). Tomato soup is essential to the combo, and really sets off the simpler flavors of the sandwich for a heartwarming and unmistakably comforting food.

2. Mashed potatoes
Something about the creaminess of mashed potatoes is impossibly amazing. You can add almost anything- sour cream, garlic, etc.- and it will work well with the comforting carb base of potato. Please, please, do add gravy. It’s delicious. Making a volcano of gravy with mashed potatoes is an absolute staple of childhood. A perfect addition to any meal, but not necessarily a meal in itself, and so it doesn’t quite make it to the top spot.

1. Macaroni and cheese
I’ve already written a post about how I think mac and cheese is best to be enjoyed, at my blog post you can find here (https://dorathywriting.poetry.blog/2020/02/06/the-process-of-macaroni-and-cheese/), so now I’ll just talk about its merits in general. To quote from the post, “it’s warm, cheesy, gooey, filling, reminds people of their childhood- it ticks off any and all boxes for comfort food that could be ticked.” It’s everything you could want in a meal and more. And if it isn’t, there are infinite possibilities! Want meat? Add meat. Want different sauce flavors- hot sauce, barbecue sauce, tomato sauce? Do whatever your heart desires! Macaroni and cheese is the ultimate, #1 comfort food.

So, that’s my imperfect listing of my opinions on comfort foods. What’s your favorite comfort food? Did it make the Wikipedia list? Did I rank it incorrectly? Let me know in the comments!

When I was a kid, my parents didn’t let us have any video games. No Xbox, no PlayStation, no GameCube- we didn’t even have smartphones. This meant that the only games I played as a kid were either at a friend’s house or, more commonly, online. Some of these were educational games that taught things like multiplication and keyboarding. Others were completely fun-focused time-wasters that I loved with every bit of my middle school heart. Of these, the nearest and dearest to me was an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game) called Animal Jam.

Animal Jam was released in 2010 by National Geographic, and has been going strong and gaining a cult following with children and preteens ever since. It masquerades as being “educational” by containing the occasional fact about animals, but children (such as I) would eagerly skip past these facts to get to its more entertaining aspects.

A relatively simple game, Animal Jam is so-called because the avatar you play with is an animal. It’s set in a world full of animals called “Jamaa,” The original, smaller selection included wolves, tigers, pandas, bunnies, koalas and monkeys, but as it has grown in the years it’s existed, it now includes new animals like eagles and llamas, and variants of existing animals such as “spring bunnies”. The possibilities are endless. You pick an animal, name it, choose from several different colors and outfits, and then… do any of a million activities. You can play mini-games, bigger story-driven games called “adventures,” buy items, go to parties, decorate your “den,” and above all, interact with other players (called “Jammers”). It had a simple charm that would let you waste hours and hours on these activities. Of course, my parents never let me sit in front of the computer for more than an hour, but I loved those hours with a passion.

The real trick to Animal Jam was that it was, technically, free. You could gain access to the fundamental parts of the game without buying anything. However, to get the coolest items, dens, animals and adventures, you had to be a “member.” Memberships cost $6.59 a month, $29.95 for 6 months, or $57.95 for a year. It seems like a deceptively simple amount of money at first, but National Geographic has made a killing with kids begging their parents for money to be a “member” in this game. I know that I was one of them (unfortunately for my poor parents). I got a membership once for Christmas, and then had to spend my own hard-earned money to get them later on.

I stopped playing the game when I was about 14 or 15, from more sporadic visits coming to a full halt, but it was still a big part of my childhood. I introduced my sisters to it, and the youngest ones still play it regularly, so it’s nice to occasionally walk through the house and hear the bouncy soundtrack that brings back happy childhood memories.

Something interesting happened this last week, though- my sisters excitedly told me that Animal Jam was giving out free two-week memberships to all its players, in homage to the fact that so many people are home during the quarantine. All you had to do was enter the code they gave you when logging in. They urged me to log into the game again, just to get the code and mess around for a week or two. I’m nothing if not a people pleaser, and I was also a little intrigued by the premise of revisiting this game that I used to spend so much time in. So yesterday, I logged back in to catch a glimpse of my childhood.

Nostalgia hit me like a ton of pillows. Even hearing the music that played as the game started up and the familiar little click sounds as I spun the “daily spin” wheel for a prize immediately brought back a flood of memories. Looking at all my old animal avatars, their names and clothes, everything I put so much painstaking time into, was really interesting. I hadn’t been expecting the emotional rush. Wandering the places I used to go- my den, the hot chocolate shop, the Crystal Sands beach, the arcade- reminded me of a thousand lost, forgotten hopes and dreams and cares I’d once had, all centering around this game. My inventory stocked with a thousand “rare” and “valuable” items I’d put in so much work to obtain… my outfits, carefully crafted to cultivate a certain feeling or look like another character I loved… my username, “sparklegirl252,” that I’d thought infinitely clever at the time… my dens, my animal names, my favorite games, my friends list, everything. It all flooded over me in a rush as I looked around the world I basically lived in during middle school. What a time.

If any of you are looking for something to do with the massive amount of free time on our hands, if you have little siblings with the same problem, or if you ever spent a crazy amount of time on this game like I did, then I urge you to log in again and just spend a little bit of time in this innocent, animal game filled world. I had a good time, and I’ll probably come back every once in a while if I need cheering up. Revisit something you did in your childhood- it’ll do you a lot of good.

All right, you’ve heard enough stories about me. Now it’s time to hear about the really important people- my dogs.

I love my dogs. They’re both dachshunds, and they’re best friends.

This is Frankie, short for Frankfurter. He’s the older of the two, at roughly 8 years old. He’s a purebred smooth-haired mini dachshund. We got him as a puppy. My mom found him on Craigslist for $100, which is actually pretty cheap for a purebred. He was the last of his litter and the seller wanted him off his hands. So we took him home in a little box and he’s been home ever since.

He’s the quieter of the two, partially due to his age. He’s fine with lying around all day, sunbathing in rays of light from the windows, curling up on a pillow exactly his size or burrowing into a blanket like a burrito. Dachshunds were bred as burrowing dogs, to sniff out badgers and other tunneling animals, so both dogs like to burrow into blankets and lay completely wrapped there. We’ve learned not to sit on blankets unless we check to make sure there’s not a dog in them first.

This is Chewie, short for Chewbacca. He’s younger, barely older than a puppy, about 3 years old. We have no idea if he’s purebred or not, but he seems to be at least mostly wire-haired dachshund. Their hair grows a lot longer than this, but we trim his fur so that he doesn’t become an absolute mop of muddy tangles. He’s a rescue- we weren’t planning on having another dog for a little while, even though Frankie was beginning to get lonely. There’s a story behind how we got him.

My older brother used to mow lawns and do yard care as a side business. One of the families he worked for had a really muddy, sad-looking dog who would follow him around the yard to be petted. One day, the owners of the property saw him petting the dog, and asked if my brother wanted him. If not, they said, they would be taking him to the pound. The dog had been a gift for their daughter, who hadn’t wanted to take care of him, so they’d just been leaving him outside and not really paying him any attention. My brother said he’d have to ask my mom, so he did. I was with my mom when she got the phone call, but I don’t remember her exact responses. I can only imagine what my brother would have said: “So, heyyy, Mom… do you want another dog?”

Long story short, we ended up taking him in, trimming his fur, and adopting him into our family. He and Frankie didn’t get along at first, but once Chewie learned not to play with the older dog’s toys or steal his food, they got along fine. Now, they’re best friends, practically inseparable.

Whereas Frankie can lay around all day, Chewie is a rambunctious bundle of energy. He’s a complete wild card. Half of his time on the couch is spent draped across the back like a cat, or attentively looking out the window for the slightest sign of a squirrel. If he sees one, he’ll whine at the door until one of us lets him out, and then he’s off like a speeding, barking bullet towards the rodent. He can stay by the fence for hours, running back and forth, watching the squirrel. If he starts to lose interest, the squirrel will taunt him, running along the fence and waving its tail and chattering at him. Sometimes Frankie will run outside and bark with him, but lose interest and go sniff around elsewhere after a minute or two.

Chewie is also a notorious digger. We have a garden in our backyard, as well as a good-sized lawn… but some parts of it are absolutely riddled with holes. He doesn’t even usually dig to bury anything, he just enjoys it. Unfortunately for everyone, Oregon is often muddy, and so he’ll come inside with his entire front legs and chest completely caked in mud (or, in the dryer seasons, just dirt). He is a master at getting into trouble. One time, he ate a garter snake in our garden- then promptly threw it up all over my Mom’s nice new rug. Then he spent the rest of the day outside.

Frankie has his own moments, though. For one, he absolutely despises water. This means whether it’s going outside in the rain, or being forced to have a bath, he’ll try to get out of it. If we ask him to go outside while it’s raining, he’ll just stare despondently out the door until we gently place him on the doorstep. If we even say the word “bath,” he runs and hides in his bed until we pick him up to put him in the sink and wash him. The most scared I’ve ever seen him of water, however, was when we took him to the beach. He was having fun at first, tearing up the sand, sniffing at seagulls, looking around at all of the sights to see and scents to smell. Then, he saw the ocean. His claws dug into the sand, he stopped abruptly despite the pull of the leash, and absolutely refused to go any further. I could practically hear him thinking, what is this? Why have you brought me here, to the mother of all bathtubs? He stayed far away from the ocean for the rest of the beach trip.

I have a ton more stories and pictures I could share, but I think I’ll try and keep this somewhat brief. Suffice it to say, I love my dogs, and they love us, and they love each other. I really miss them and I can’t wait to see them over Spring Break.

Some injuries are cool to boast about, like breaking your leg while doing some crazy parkour or breaking your wrist when punching a tree in your righteous frustration. Other injuries are… not. This post will recount some of the more stupid, trivial wounds I’ve received while just living my life.

Spraining my Ankle

We have a trampoline in our backyard. One of those industrial-size ones that you need a small stepladder to get onto, and with a big black net strung all around it because my mom didn’t want us to fall off. It was my favorite form of exercise as a kid; going outside with my siblings and playing on the trampoline, jumping and playing a circular version of tag and putting every ounce of energy to good use. In the summer we’d put sprinklers under it and bounce around to our hearts’ content. And whenever our cousins or friends came over, the first thing they’d want to do is play on the trampoline with us.

One of these times when our second cousins were staying at our house, they woke up early in the morning. It was on my 8th birthday, and we were going to celebrate at Chuck E Cheese’s later in the day. I was super excited. The cousins woke up my older brother and I by watching cartoons, first of all- because this is in the summer, and what better summer morning activity than watching cartoons? But they quickly got bored of that, and once it was light enough outside, they begged us to go outside and play on the trampoline. So, of course we did! But when you’re a small 8-year old jumping around with larger preteens, things can go wrong. And they did.

When I was launched into the air by a powerful jump from one of my cousins, I landed incorrectly on my ankle and sprained it. Of course, none of us kids knew what that meant, but I was in pain and crying so one of them rushed to wake up my mom. After ten minutes or so of panic, my mom figured out that my ankle was only sprained, not broken, and so it would be fine in a few days as long as we put ice on it and didn’t let me run around too much. So though it was painful for a while, my mom helped me walk around, and I still got to go and play at Chuck E Cheese’s. I just had to do it carefully and without the reckless abandon of most 8-year-olds. It felt better in about two days, if I remember correctly, and didn’t even hurt that badly.

Losing a Toenail

(Kind of gross, so don’t read if you get easily grossed out by injuries.) My family has a fireplace in our house. Not an electric fire, not a fake fire, an actual fireplace with a brick chimney on our roof and everything. We use wood to build fires, so my dad and older brother chop wood in the summer to fill our woodshed for the winter. The children (once we were old enough, of course) were always in charge of getting wood from the woodshed to build fires that kept the house warm. It was much cheaper than using the house’s built-in heating system, and very effective when done correctly. We would go and put heavy pieces of wood in a wheelbarrow, move it over to the back door, and then pass them in fire-brigade style to the wood-box next to the fireplace. This was a system that usually worked very well. One day, however, it didn’t.

When my siblings and I were getting firewood on this one day, passing it through the doorway to someone inside by the wood-box, my sister handed me a really heavy piece of wood. I misjudged its weight, so it slipped through my fingers and landed straight on the big toe of my right foot. It hurt a little bit, so I handed the wood to my brother and walked inside, sitting on the couch and breathing for a few moments. My mom, who had seen what happened, panicked and took off my shoe to reveal that my sock was turning red. She gingerly took the sock off and saw that my big toenail was almost completely ripped away from my foot- the entire thing, not just the white edge. It was just hanging to my toe by a string of skin.

It was still bleeding heavily, so my mom put my foot in a bowl of warm water until the bleeding stopped and the pain ebbed a little bit. Once it stopped hurting too much, I was just happy to have gotten out of the rest of the work. My dad ended up carefully severing the dangling nail from my foot with a pair of pliers, and I just had to be extra careful with my toe for the next couple of weeks. It grew back in a couple of months, though the nail is a little malformed compared to the other ones, so no major harm was done. But it’s not the cool sort of injury you talk about, and it happened in a very minor way.

Breaking my Front Tooth

This one was very recent. Just last November, actually, here at college. One Friday night, my friend and boyfriend and I were going to watch a movie with the Harry Potter Club- I just needed to put my backpack away in dorm first, and my boyfriend was going to go call his parents for a bit. Since it was the winter, it was dark despite being just before 7pm. I put away my backpack, then came back to walk to the FoxHole (hangout spot where the movie was being shown) with my friend. My boyfriend was going to catch up with us later. A car was coming down the street, so we walked next to the parking lot for a little while instead of on the sidewalk. My friend suggested that we go to the other side of the road, so we crossed over. But when I lifted my foot to step onto the sidewalk, with all the force of power-walking behind me, my toes caught the edge, and I face-planted right onto the concrete.

Falling is a weird feeling- you don’t quite realize that it’s happened until three seconds later, when you’re lifting your face off of the sidewalk and looking down in confusion at the small puddle of blood that’s growing. A tiny white chip of tooth lay next to the blood puddle, and reaching up with an adrenaline-trembling hand showed me that my lip had split open and my front right tooth had its bottom half snapped clean off. My friend had seen me fall- she managed to hold herself together in the face of a very understandable panic, looking for the campus security number to call on her phone. Someone walking on the street also saw the predicament, and got someone from the nearby Hadlock Student Center to come over with a first aid kit. More people came to assist- making sure my RA from just 50 feet away was contacted because she had to file an incident report, calling campus security to give me a ride to the emergency room, gawking at the flow of blood coming from my face. Honestly, it was embarrassing.

I felt no pain, due to being in shock, but I was frustrated at myself for getting such a stupid injury in such a stupid way. How hard can it be to step onto a sidewalk? Also, I hate dentists, and so the fact that now I would have to deal with one was anxiety-inducing. I would rather have broken my wrist, even though that definitely would have taken longer to heal. But in the end, all was well. Campus security drove me, and my friend, and my boyfriend (who had rushed up once he heard the news) to the emergency room (the other hospitals weren’t open, given that it was almost 8pm by this point). They ascertained that my lip didn’t need stitches, gave me an ice pack, and told me to go see a dentist to get my tooth fixed back on. Luckily, I’d saved the small chip of enamel, and they gave me a little container with cleaning fluid to put it in.

Telling my parents about it was… fun. I’d used up my yearly dose of college shenanigan stupidity without even trying. They contacted our dentist, however, who agreed to see me the very next day in order to fix my tooth. I had to eat around a swollen lip for the next two weeks, and only soft foods for roughly a week. Talking was difficult, singing even more so- unluckily, since I was in choir and since my job involves talking to people on the phone. My dentist informed me that I am no longer allowed to bite into apples or carrots with my front teeth. Everything has been fine, though. Almost three months later, my teeth are still okay, my lip has healed completely except for a tiny scar, and neither my friend nor my boyfriend abandoned me despite my stupid injury causing them to miss a fun night of watching a Harry Potter movie. As a matter of fact, they both stayed with me the rest of the evening. Not only did they come with me to the emergency room (out of no obligation, just because they were that nice), they came with me back to my dorm room and cheered me up. When I left to get a drink of water and came back, there was a mysterious dollar under my pillow from “the tooth fairy.” They still sat and ate with me even when I had to chew with my mouth open or find some way to get a spoon of oatmeal past my swollen lip. They are true friends, the real deal, and I’m lucky to have them in my life.

So yeah- those are some of the miniscule, but annoying injuries I’ve gotten over the past 18 or so years of living. I’m sure I’ll get injured in many more stupid ways before I die. While these were all somewhat crazy experiences, everything always turned out well, and sometimes it was even a good thing. I think especially in the case of me breaking my tooth, I was able to feel a lot closer to my friend and my boyfriend, and they really came through for me. I hope that when you guys inevitably suffer a similarly stupid injury, that you have good people to help you through it!