For example, last night I was needing some comfort. I had started my day with the news of the plane hijacks and crashes. I drank my bitter morning coffee and watched as the World Trade Center Twin Towers collapsed. I am far from home and family, (even though technically I am a full-time Colorado resident), and I needed to be reminded of the comfort and safety of those things. So, for dinner, I decided to make a meal from my childhood--meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans.

I have never cooked meatloaf myself. Until a few years ago I was a vegetarian and only ate hamburger again just recently, for the first time in about ten years. I found a recipe for meatloaf in my Fannie Farmer cookbook, bought all the ingredients and had a whole plan for timing all three items to be finished at the same time. Remember, I said I was a perfectionist. An element of this quality is to clean as I cook, so that by the time I am done, so are the dishes and any other clean-up. My husband was upstairs working on the computer and I was downstairs preparing a meal that I fully expected would dazzle him and restore my connection with the comforts of home and hearth.  I expected this single loaf of meat to dull the impact of the events of 9/11, restore my self confidence, ease my loneliness and fear, and anything else it might have the strength to rectify.

© Salahub 2003