Comfort Food

One of the things that's easy to miss when you move from NJ to CLT is the availability of Italian food. Back home, every town had at least two Italian restaurants of one kind or another. Some of the best food was at the small family run pizza places on the corner. They are not as common here as back home -- I haven't found one here in Charlotte yet, but did find one in Winston-Salem, as mentioned in my blog posting about my trip up there. There are the chain restaurants and some high end ones, but I miss the small corner places. So recently I've been getting cravings for Italian food ... I found Celentano frozen food at the Harris Teeter down here, so I've have some eggplant parmigiana recently, although it seems the portions are a lot smaller than I remember them. During my day off this week, I saw a commercial for Pizza Hut, promoting their new Lasagna. So, not really wanting to cook, I took the risk and ordered it. I mean, over the years, I've had some really bad Italian food and I've had some of the best - thanks to my Mom, Mrs. Piccinnini and Mrs. Galante! While not really holding much hope for it, I placed the order. $20.00 got me a pan of lasagna and a two liter bottle of Sierra Mist and figured it can work out to be dinner for three days. About 25 minutes after placing the order there was a knock at the door and dinner was here!

I opened the box and found what looked like lasagna - crispy around the edges (the best part) and sauce covering the top. I got out the spatula and a couple of pieces on my plate and sat down to eat. From the look, the only negative was that it's not a deep dish lasagna, but only two or three layers. I sat down and took a bite and was pleasantly surprised that it was pretty good. Plenty of ricotta and the sauce had a good taste about it - not sweet like Stouffer's. Being single and living alone, the 1/2 pan size should make for a few days meals. Included with the lasagna was a bag with five bread sticks which you really can't reheat, so I had to eat them that night.

Heading home from work tonight, I had to stop to pick up a couple of cases of water. While walking through the Harris Teeter, I walked past the Entenmann's display, thinking that maybe a box of fudge covered donuts might jump into my cart ... but then I noticed the marble pound cake and my mind went back to childhood ... toasted pound cake with melted butter on top!! YUMMMMMM ... it's been a couple of years since I've had that, so of course I had to get the pound cake and a tub of Land O Lakes whipped butter. Of course Breakstone's was more a part of my memories, but couldn't find that down here. So, tonight after I have my reheated Pizza Hut Lasagna, I opened the box (opened from the end instead of flip-top like I remembered ) and toasted a couple of slices of pound cake and enjoyed a dessert that took me back to my childhood ... Now that is comfort food!!

Thanks for reading and I'll be posting again soon. . .