And the Fortune Cookies Ain't Bad, Either

Comfort food.

We all love it.

At times we all crave it.

The stuff that reminds us of better times, good times, people we love and places that make us feel all warm and squishy inside.

A lot of the time this food is connected to something or someone in our childhood- that time of life when it's OK to assume and expect that someone else will step up and take care of you, oversee the security of the things that make life.

That's why comfort food tends to be things like chocolate, ice cream, macaroni and cheese...

The one thing that over-rides all others for me?

Panda Express Walnut Shrimp.

Weird, huh?

That doesn't seem like a very kid-friendly food, and it's sure not something Grandma Albeck whipped up in her kitchen.

Add to that, that it's only been at the top of my list for about 2 1/2 years.

And yet, when we're lucky enough to be within reach of a Panda Express restaurant, that's what I order. Every time.

There was a time in the spring of 2010 that I can safely point at from a distance and say, "This- this was the darkest time our family has been through. Right here."

Ward was in intensive care and non-responsive. I was sick, mentally worn out and physically drained- feverish, dizzy, migraine headache and vomiting. So sick I couldn't go see my husband. So sick I couldn't care for my 10 year old boy. So sick I was simultaneously overcome with the weight of needing to be strong and present for my family and the apathy that internal breakdown imposes to make a body stop.

Just stop.

And heal.

I tried to go to the store because we were out of food and Alec had to finish checking out because I realized I couldn't stand even in the express lane without fainting from pain and nausea.

I wanted desperately to see Ward but knew I'd never be able to traverse the round-and-round-and-round of the parking garage. Briefly I considered walking the mile-plus distance till I realized I'd then have to step onto an elevator.

I was trapped and grounded and helpless.

And that's when our friends stepped in and stepped up. From a distance they couldn't tell the straits I was in until I broke down and asked for help.

I asked for help.

That unleashed a migration of care and love that took our breath away.

Money showered down on us, care packages and gift cards pelted us from all directions and a parade of bodies appeared- people who didn't know each other in 'real life' slid like finely woven threads into and out of the fabric of this scratchy, ragged patch in the quilt of our life- pulling the edges together and mending us, keeping the whole thing from falling apart.

One of these was Cathy- my dearest friend for over 30 years, she's been there for me through 2 horrific marriages and the sometimes more horrific ending of them, she flew (as in an airplane) to Houston to sit with me the day of Ward's first surgery at MD Anderson, and now she took a day off of work to drive the 8+ hours to be with us yet again.

She took Alec to the zoo and the park for the day while I cocooned myself under the covers in the dark, willing myself to shed the sickness so I could explode back into action, back up to the hospital, back up to Ward.

At suppertime, Cathy told Alec they needed to bring me something to eat and asked him what he thought I'd like. Without hesitation he said, "That Chinese restaurant Walnut Shrimp".

Except he didn't remember the name of the restaurant. Or where it was. Just that it was "somewhere around the hotel".

In Houston.

Where she's not from.

There are a gabazillion places to eat within napkin-snapping distance of the hotel.

Somehow, some way, she found it.

And my boy proudly presented me with Walnut Shrimp.

And it was Good.

This same boy went to the grocery store a few days later with April and Christine- friends who took several days out of their lives and away from their families to drive the 5 hours to Houston, stay at the hotel and help out.

They came back from the Kroger's and pulled me quietly aside. "We told him he could get whatever he wanted to and everything he put in the cart he said 'My mom likes this'. No candy, no Doritos, nothing of that nature- we even TRIED to put that stuff in the cart but he declined".

So Panda Express Walnut Shrimp is not only tasty, it's my comfort food of the highest order.

Because it reminds me of that moment in our family's darkest hour when I discovered that even as a grownup, it's OK to assume and expect that someone else will step up and take care of me, oversee the security of the things that make life.

Our friends for sure, always.

My son, absolutely.

I don't know how I got lucky enough to give birth to a boy with all his dad's intelligence, wry humor and heart-breakingly/heart-swellingly immense compassion but somehow I managed it.

I remember it every day- in almost every interaction with the Boy, and every time I order up the Walnut Shrimp it's reaffirmed in a tangible, memory-tugging and soul-comforting way.

Panda Express Walnut Shrimp.

Good stuff.

A Very Sad Brunch

Well, not the entire brunch.

We had bacon, which is always a winner. Not too crispy, but not all limp and fatty either.

There was pecan banana bread made with the one over ripe banana we had left and last year's pecans still in the freezer.

No. The sad part was the eggs.

Don't get me wrong- they were lovely- beautiful whites framing perky deep golden yolks- obviously from our healthy free range chickens who spend all day every day eating bugs and plants and only pecking at the scratch I toss at them out of politeness.

There were 7 eggs in the carton. 7 eggs in the pan gently fried up in real butter.

And that's the end of them.

That's the sad part.

Our chickens free range- not that "put 'em in a big cage with a wire bottom and haul them from spot to spot" bogus free ranging which is really what every single free range egg you buy at the store really is.

Our chickens never see the inside of a coop. They're out scrounging up their own grub (literally) from dawn till dusk and then fly (yes. chickens fly.) up into the trees right outside our bedroom window for the night.

Which is good because the eggs are outstandingly delicious and so orangey yellow people have called me to ask what's wrong with them- the egg yolks from the store are that 'normal' tinted mucous color and they ooze down to be almost even with the whites.

I assume out of embarrassment.

The only negative in this whole arrangement is that true free range chickens are not Human Property, they are part of the Food Chain. So there's a fair amount of...attrition by coyote and hawk.

So several times a year I either hatch out a new batch of chicks (if the hens are not setting on their own) or purchase a box of pullets from the hatchery to keep us always in between 1 and 2 dozen laying hens at all times.

And while the lives of the individual chickens is generally wildly shorter on our little farm, I can't help thinking while watching them break off into natural flocks and working their territories- with hardly a cockfight or mutilated hen on the place, things that are all too common when they're kept penned in close (but safe) quarters- that the life they have here is more satisfying and rewarding for them.

Yes. Whether or not a chicken lives a happy life is important.

We're getting ready to move in a few months (hopefully sooner) and that entails catching and moving all our critters- horse, goats, chickens, ducks, guinea hens and cats. Some will be easy to move, some will be a challenge, and the poultry will be tricky at best, maddeningly frustrating at worst. With that in mind, I've not replenished the flock and we've now got 5 roosters and 6 hens. Three of those hens are over 2 years old, so not laying reliably anymore, but considering they've probably given us over 750 eggs EACH, letting them live out their retirement years seems a fairer deal than making 'em into soup.

With the days getting shorter, even the young hens stop laying reliably, so we're down to frozen eggs from the month plus we were in Houston and poor Joe was drowning in eggs- when we came home we froze almost 20 dozen, which are great to cook and bake with, but freezing changes the consistency so for breakfast they come up lacking.

So we ate the last of the fresh eggs today till probably late spring- I'll buy more chicks as soon as we move, and they'll start laying by May or June.

I'm afraid what it boils down to is that my family is spoiled when it comes to food.

Oh, I don't buy name brand anything, and very very little processed food at all- I cook and bake from scratch not just because I enjoy it, but because that way I KNOW what we're eating because I put the ingredients in my own self and didn't just trust the picture on the front of the box.

We ate the last of the eggs talking of other things, the sunshine yellow yolks smiling up at us from between the warm banana bread and the bacon and then they were gone.

It's a long way to May, but I'm trying to look at it the same way I look at fruits and vegetables- I never buy sweet corn or tomatoes or other short-season stuff out of their natural times because the imposters shipped in during the rest of the year are so much more than a disappointment, they're a disgrace to the produce section.

That a great majority of our populace thinks eggs with the consistency of snot, corn that's more starch than sugar and tomatoes that taste like...nothing... are normal, and healthy, and...food, makes me simultaneously very sad and explains not only the acceptance but the embrace of McAnything served up in a styrofoam box.