Conquering the munchies

            It's one of those nights. You're feeling a little blue because you spilled soy sauce on your new shirt, you didn't get a joke one of the young people in the office was laughing about or you find gray hair in your eyebrows.

            Those are the times I'm grateful for comfort foods. Although your hips remember long after your lips have forgotten, if you don't over-indulge, a little munchable comfort goes a long way. 

            First on the list, peanut butter. Yes it's fattening and high in calories, but peanut butter on a spoon sticks to the roof of my mouth and takes me back to my childhood days when a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich was the perfect companion when hunkering down on a nasty, wet day.

            Next on the list is chocolate. Not any chocolate, mind you, but delicious yet affordable chocolate – Hershey's Kisses. While feeling a little blue, unwrapping those kisses and letting them melt on my tongue is almost like getting a real kiss on my chubby cheek from my mom while she tells me everything will be okay.

            Right up there with chocolate is almost anything crunchy.  I'm not talking about healthy crunchy foods like celery and carrots. I'm talking about Doritos, Cheetohs and Cheez Balls. Of those three, the Doritos are the top dog because you can take three bites out of each Dorito versus two bites out of a puffy Cheetoh.

            And then there's ice cream. For the usual quick pick-me-up, any cheap brand will do. But for those nights when the world's crashing, only Blue Bell vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and peanuts on top is a bona-fide mood elevator.

            I'm almost convincing myself that comfort foods have a scientific basis.

            In these days of healthy eating, I have to find a way to rationalize choosing peanut butter over tofu.  So to justify that bowl of Blue Bell, I have the comfort foods categorized.

            At DEFCON 4, there's the soft comfort foods – Twinkies and Little Debbie Cakes. Because these two snacks are gone in a couple of bites, I only use those when I'm a little down. They're light-weights in the "feelin' the blues" mood.

            For times when I can see a blue horizon for the evening, DEFCON 3, I have to pull in a little heavier artillery – namely, Oreos and milk. Each dunk of the Oreo cookie in the ice-cold milk is dunking away a little bit more of the problem.

            When we're up to DEFCON 2 -- flashing red lights signaling the blues are hanging around until the sun comes up again -- I roll out the big dogs – pancakes. First, beating up the batter gets out a little bit of frustration. Then pouring those perfect circles on a hot grill makes me feel somehow in control of life.

            When I've got a stack of light brown cakes ready, I smother them with slabs of butter accompanied by real maple syrup. Every bite takes me back to the days of making pancakes on leisurely Saturday mornings for my boys and laughing around the breakfast table.  

            Life seemed easier back then, and if I survived stomach viruses that hit all three boys at the same time, back-to-back outbreaks of chicken pox and watching each one of my boys drive away from home to start their own lives, then I can survive whatever minor problem is coming my way.

            And if the blues start washing over me, if I listen hard enough, I'll hear the Blue Bell carton calling out salvation.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.