Comfort Food

Today is Butterscotch Pudding Day. I never crave butterscotch pudding, and quite honestly, it is not a food I ever want to splurge the calories for. However - it is one of the first foods that comes to mind for me when thinking of comfort foods if someone in my family is sick. That's because Aimee and her dad always wanted it whenever they were sick. We always kept a few boxes on hand, and if someone got a cold, the pudding was a must!

Several years ago after I had surgery a friend brought me a fabulous meal. Her husband told me it was what she always delivered to friends if she was 'taking a meal.' When she shared the recipe with me I was most impressed, because it was a ton of work!! I felt special.

Isn't that what comfort food is all about? Making our friend feel special. When we learn of a death in a friend's family one of the first instincts is to take food. When someone is hospitalized we offer to take food for the family. When friends move to a new house, we offer to feed them during the move. It IS what friends do! That's actually how we came up for the name of the WhatFriendsDo.com website.... so often we would hear people say "you didn't have to do that for me" .. and our response is always "it's what friends do."

Before we created the website, we had several friends going through serious, long illnesses. Like so many others, we wanted to help. But we didn't want to be intrusive. We didn't want to overload the families with food when others were also providing meals. We wanted to know how we could best help, and when! We've "been there" with spending long hours at the hospital only to go home to oodles of voice messages from concerned friends, but we were too exhausted to return the calls. The offers of "call me if you need anything" were always genuine, but asking was exhausting, and felt awkward. Gosh, we just needed comfort food! :)

WhatFriendsDo.com has all the tools for friends to stay close, keep informed, and provide the best comfort food! The team Help Schedule even allows your friend to specify just what it is they consider comfort food -- and what foods they really will only be saying they like to be polite - but they wish nobody would bring! :) Check it out!

Today's Quote: “Food is not about impressing people. It's about making them feel comfortable.”Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook