Comfort food -- readers' choice

Earlier this week Mark Bittman, who writes and blogs about food, healthy eating and sustainable agriculture for the New York Times, had a column and then a post about comfort food.

Lots of people wrote in with comments about their own favorite comfort foods, and boy, did it run the gamut.  Lots of mashed potatoes, but lots of more exotic stuff like seafood gumbo, fish tacos, liverwurst, Chinese radish cakes, and kielbasa baked in a can of beer.

But my favorite of all the comments came from somebody in Los Angeles, who wrote:

After the big Northridge earthquake here, I hosted an earthquake survivors' comfort food dinner party for my friends whose homes had been damaged. I polled them on their favorite comfort foods and filled the table. We had toast, tea, chicken pot pies, tomato soup, pasta, meatballs, a lot of chocolate desserts, and jello. Also wine. The jello wound up being the perfect thing. We made it in a big bowl, unmolded it, and put Monopoly houses all over it. Instant earthquake! 

My earthquake survivor friends released their angst by smashing those little houses into the jello - "that house didn't make it!" "That one's red-lined!" "And no earthquake insurance!" True comfort.