Comfort Food

We had ham and sweet potatoes for dinner tonight. Comfort food for Appalachians.

Comfort food becomes important in the frigid, white on white on white of winter.

What I miss is this: the open faced turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and peas and lots and lots of gravy from a restaurant in Welch, WV, the name of which I cannot pull from my contracting memory.

And a little cranberry sauce from a can--how good is that?

My mother would take me to Welch on occasion to shop for what I know not. Welch was the county seat--a metropolis of almost 5000 compared to Anawalt's 500. Lordy, lordy, 10 times larger!

And we'd always go to this restaurant and I'd always have the open faced turkey sandwich on safe, unquestioned white bread with all the rest. I think that's where I learned to eat pepper because I remember peppering everything on the plate and putting butter on top of the gravy on the mashed potatoes.

Pepper and butter and gravy--three food groups in my mind.

I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, just so my memory would be complete.

(Every once in a while I try to recreate that dish. And I've never got it quite right. Probably because the gravy was home-made and not from a jar....)