A Word About Comfort

Tonight I'm back from an event in NYC, 24 hours there and back, running all day and 3 hours of sleep. I also feel like the moron who was coughing WITHOUT COVERING HIS MOUTH behind me on the shuttle flight has successfully infected me with his funk. I'm beyond sleep deprived.

I only wanted one thing tonight when I got home: my comfort meal that I never cook for anyone else. It's a more sophisticated riff on mac and cheese, fish sticks, and peas. In other words, school lunch for rainy days. It's fatty, garlicky, filling, and hot as hell. I like to fancy that it'll burn our all of the germs currently congregating in my sinuses and throat.

Toss into oven: Trader Joe's Breaded Tilapia fillet. These are the bomb: they come three to a box, are under 300 calories, individually sealed (which makes my toes curl in food-preservation delight) and are like fish sticks but crispier, less greasy, and not very salty.

Prepare thin spaghetti and ready a bowl with unsalted butter, EVOO, a shitload of red crushed pepper, freshly ground black pepper, two to three crushed garlic cloves.



Drop hot pasta directly into bowl; the hot water renders the garlic and mellows it a bit.




Toss, coating pasta, and then shake in a generous helping of Pecorino Romano (I prefer Romano most of the time to Parm, which I find to be sorta... timid).




In strainer, dip some frozen peas (ginormous bag at Market Basket for $1.49) into hot pasta water for 30 seconds or so to thaw and toss with finished pasta.




Look at plate and realize you are glutton and will never be able to prepare a "healthy" portion of pasta. Rip into plate in sleep-deprived haze of starvation. Warm lovely feeling fills you as you stumble along writing your boring blog post and peace out to sleep.



Night night.