The Tasty Colors of Comfort Food

Have you ever noticed that the comfort foods of fall resemble the general colors of fall?

Sweet potatoes: orange. Chili: brown and red.

Soups: beige (baked potato soup), red (tomato bisque), orange (butternut squash soup), brown (vegetable soup).

Pot pies: pops of orange (carrots) and brown (beef). Mashed potatoes and gravy (with or without roast): beige, yellow (the butter!), brown.

Biscuits: yellow (butter), brown (the biscuit itself or the syrup).

Anyone hungry yet?

Sure, we can eat any of those foods in the spring or summer, but they just don’t taste the same. When the crisp air settles in, we want something hot that will “stick to our bones,” as our mothers would say. As the darkness of night comes too soon, we want our homes to smell aromatic with spices and juice. The heat from the stove helps warm both our bodies and our souls.

We haven’t had our first frost here in Chicagoland yet, but we have had chilly days, cold nights and dreary rainy weekends. It was on those days that my husband made a big pot of chili that we ate for days. On the last Sunday in September, we enjoyed sweet potato pancakes while the temperature on my phone read 47 degrees that morning.

Inevitably, though, comfort foods remind me of childhood. Pot roast and crispy potatoes with carrots in the big old black roaster. French toast on Sunday mornings while the trumpet played the opening of “CBS Sunday Morning.” And my favorite -- pot pies on cold Saturday nights before “The Love Boat” came on.

What’s your favorite comfort food? And have you made it yet this season? I’m still waiting on that pot pie....