Why They Call It Comfort Food

My friend and colleague, the inimitable children's writer, Candice Farris Ransom, just sang the praises of mom and pop diners, which she wisely prefers over "fern bars," all the better to do "constructive eavesdropping." However, it's more than just fodder for an author's mill that she speaks of.

She writes of the comfort she's found in her own neighborhood eatery, following a summer marked by sadness and the kind of fatigue that penetrates the body and spirit. We are on the "same page" on this one. We both shared the loss of a former professor (somehow, that description is so inadequate) who impacted us forever in our professional lives and as human beings. And then, while we most needed a bit of a respite, we remained thrust in the midst of "the world" and all that that entails. She writes beautifully of her own experience in her blog, "Under the Honeysuckle Vine," and there is no need for me to comment further on her end.

As to my own travails, they included the flood of the century occurring during a sojourn to my Wisconsin hometown, which decimated my car, and an incomprehensible assault, which I will need some time to process and heal from.

And I, like my literary friend, have felt a pull towards what heals best -- a return to a simpler time in an America not easy to find these days. For me, it's a 20-minute drive to Ponchatoula, which bills itself as not only "The Strawberry Capital of the World," but "America's Antiques City."

Speaking of, I don't know how many of you have watched James Lipton's Q&A to the evening's guest actor at the close of every segment of "Inside the Actor's Studio" on BRAVO, but I'm rather surprised that no one has yet uttered what I would say when asked, "What is your favorite word?" For me, there's nothing like a sign advertising "Antiques" to make me feel like all's right with the world ...

When I get back home, that's where I'm heading. First stop is going to be Paul's Cafe, for if ever there was the antithesis of the "fern bar," there it is. http://www.paulscafe.net/full-menu.html.

I'm gonna have me some fried catfish and a Barq's rootbeer, and bask in an ambience like no other, doing some of that "constructive eavesdropping" in the "Mayberry of the Deep South" (yet another of its monikers) until my soul has been restored. Yes, it's getting time to click my heels ...