Many years ago, before we ever started dating, the woman who became my wife told me the tragic story of a horrible weekend conference.
She was a reporter at the time, and she was sent to a journalism conference a couple of hundred miles away. She went with another reporter from the same paper, and that was the problem.
This man was odd. He was very odd. Even among journalists, a profession that tends to attract weirdos, deviants and social misfits, he was an oddball. We would get together in little groups (weirdos in one corner, deviants in another, social misfits in a third) and talk about how strange he was.
And it wasn't an endearing sort of oddness, either. A lot of journalists have that. His was the sort of annoying oddness that you did not want to be around for very long.
Which brings us back to the long-ago weekend my future wife spent with him at the conference. They were in each other's company for far longer than she liked. He was making her crazy.
Then, a heavy mountaintop snowstorm on their drive back delayed their return for one more night. It was more than she could take. The next day, before they set out for the final leg of their trip, she decided to treat herself to a badly needed hot fudge sundae.
"It was the only time in my life that chocolate didn't help," she said.
And that was the moment I fell in love with her.
"Comfort me with apples," says the Song of Solomon and Ruth Reichl. They have a point. Food has the power to comfort and console. It wraps us in its warmth, it swathes us like an old blanket.
There is a reason they call it comfort food. It brings us to a better and happier state of mind.
The woman in the Song of Solomon is lovesick; she seeks consolation in pressed raisin cakes and apples. I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not entirely on board with her choices.
When I was lovesick in my youth, my comfort foods were ice cream and Doritos, though not at the same time. When I was lovesick as an adult, my comfort foods were ice cream and alcohol. Sometimes at the same time.
Doughnuts too, of course. Doughnuts are a constant. That's the problem with not being lovesick: not enough excuses to eat doughnuts.
We all have foods that we turn to in times of sorrow and need. It's why we bring food to people who are mourning. It's why we try to cheer up friends by taking them out to dinner.
When I am beset by sadness, doughnuts do not make me feel all better, but they make me feel a little better. Or at least they don't make me feel worse. Perhaps a second doughnut would help.
Chocolate always works for my wife and a lot of other people I know. If I had known enough to give more chocolate to more women, I might not have been lovesick as often. And then I would have needed less ice cream.
But now, my wife admits, she is moving away from her beloved chocolate. Her new comfort food is salted caramel.
