Comfort

What are your comfort foods? What are the foods that are the culinary equivalent of putting on your fuzzy jammies and curling up with a great book?
Mine used to be the things that my mom made a lot when I was young: hamburger gravy on boiled potatoes, Creole rice, grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup, and chili come to mind immediately. My grandma used to make me milk toast when I was sick, and sometimes I still make it for myself when I am feeling under appreciated.  The foods I ate when I was a child bring memories with them. Sitting at the kitchen table and laughing.  Feeling loved and cherished.
As the girls and I were ripping injera into little pieces to make fir fir for lunch after a particularly rough morning, a realization struck me. These flavors, the berbere, turmeric and onions, the squishy tang of the injera, used to be so exotic to me.  The first time I ate Ethiopian food I wasn't sure whether or not I liked it. It shocked my palate in a way that seems funny now.  We used to cook Ethiopian food occasionally because we thought it was important that Meron grew up with it, and began cooking it more often when Hani and Kai came home. It was comfort food for them, and so we tried to make it available. I started to like Ethiopian food a lot and sometimes crave it.  But that day, as I looked at growing pile of injera pieces, I realized that Ethiopian food has become another comfort food for me. It makes me think of parties we have had, of birthdays we have celebrated, of days spent smelling the onions and spices cooking for hours while the kids waited with breathless impatience for the food that brought back memories of some of their happiest times in Ethiopia. 
It is a pretty good metaphor for the best parts of adoption, don't you think?   Our family now has a completely new culture made up of bits and pieces of all of our heritage: hamburger gravy and boiled potatoes from my family, chicken and dumplings from Nathan's family, and Mesir Wot and fir fir from our children's families. I think it is a beautiful thing... this coming together of worlds. None of us losing our essential heritage, but incorporating new things to make our family whole. It isn't anything I ever envisioned, but I love it. I love us.