I've Seen Better Days. . .

Things fall apart. Shit happens. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.

Most days, we do what we can. We try our best to clean up the mess, patch the cracks, console the bereft. Sometimes we just write a check.

But some days there’s nothing you can do but check out. The best decision – for everyone involved – is to take care of yourself first. Put on your oxygen mask. Adjust the straps. Breathe deeply. There, there. You can get back to fixing the rest of the world later.

Now, lest you be concerned with all this abstract doom and gloom, I should assure you that everything’s fine in the royal realm. Perfectly peachy, in fact. But you don’t spend 30-odd years (ahem) on this earth without suffering through your share of rotten days, right?

So let’s talk about comfort.



When one of those days happens, the Queen has a strategy. First, she dresses the part in a uniform that likely consists of a pair of men’s flannel pajama bottoms and a tattered cotton turtleneck. She sports Chinese velvet slippers -- the kind that make a consoling flop-flop as she wanders from room to room -- and her favorite gray “writer’s sweater,” a once-lovely piece of clothing that now hangs baggy and forlorn at her waist. Then, on particularly bad days – when even a stray lock floating about her face is unbearably annoying – she twists her hair into a bun.

It’s a glamorous look, I assure you.

What else? A blazing fire is nice. A good book never hurts. A baseball game that doesn’t involve the Reds losing can be splendid succor.

And then, of course, there’s food.

We’re all familiar with the tired notion of Comfort Food. According to those in the know, it usually involves some combination of pasta, cheese, bread and hot soup. And chocolate, natch.

But the Queen’s not buying that. A gooey grilled cheese and a Snickers might ease a wrinkled brow, but so can a plate of spicy chilaquiles. Homemade pad thai with a squirt of lime can make you feel chipper on the double. Cincinnati-style chili on a nest of noodles can be the poor man’s Paxil.

There’s no single recipe for comfort. A hot bubble bath may calm your cares, but the resulting shriveled digits and smothering steam provide no solace for me. You, Dear Reader, need to figure out your own formula.

For a downtrodden queen, though, dessert is easy. Let me whisper these three words: Egg Custard Pie.



It’s cool. It’s settling. It works wonders on anything from troubled tummies to shattered psyches. Fragrant with nutmeg, utterly smooth and transcendently soothing, it’s the Make It a Double of pies.


Egg Custard Pie
Adapted from the American Pie Council



3 eggs, beaten
¾ c. sugar
pinch of salt
1 t. pure vanilla extract
2 ½ cups milk, scalded

1 unbaked pie crust
1 egg white
nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400. Line a pie plate with the unbaked crust. Brush sides and bottom with beaten egg white.



Mix eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla until well blended. Stir in the scalded milk. Pour mixture into pie shell and sprinkle heavily with nutmeg. Bake 35-40 minutes, or until knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on rack.