Comfort Food

I have Postviral Fatigue Syndrome. I've had it since January. For family and friends who are tired of hearing about it: I'm sorry but I promise you, I'm sick of it too!

Among the many exciting symptoms - blurred eyesight, weird head noises, muscle twitches, disturbed sleep, constant tiredness and lack of energy, poor concentration and memory, etc - there's loss of appetite. I never thought the day would come when I'd look at a nice bit of fish or a glass of wine or steak and chips and think yuk! 

So I've resorted to comfort food, mainly the food we got when we were children or when we were no weel. It has the advantage of taking almost no time to prepare and it's light and easily digested. Here's my list:

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1 Soup
I prefer my own soup but that would mean making it and I'm mostly not up to that, so it's Heinz tomato soup or, at a pinch, lentil. I notice Heinz have reduced the amount of salt and sugar in their soups. Not a bad thing, but not the taste I was expecting when I started buying them again.

2 Egg in a cup
Soft boiled egg, wee bit of butter, pinch of salt and all mashed up in a mug. Glorious! I read earlier this year that soft boiled eggs are 'now' safe. I had no idea they were ever unsafe. I've been eating them like that all my days, so no point in worrying about it now!

3 Toast
White bread, lightly toasted (no need to burn the arse out of it!) and spread with a thin covering of butter. Goes nicely with the egg in a cup or on its own. This has been my sister's breakfast of champions all her life while I was choking down the healthy bran flakes. She looks good on it too!

4 Porridge
My early teens involved being wakened up by my father at the weekend with the jolly shout: Wakey, wakey! Here's your porridge! Usually this was at 7am. I quite often ignored him, waking hours later to find a plate of congealed porridge still sitting beside the bed. Now I regard it as a superfood. On days when I have no appetite for anything else, this is breakfast or lunch or supper.

5 Bacon butty
Some things go well on a roll: square sausage, fried egg, etc. But bacon, grilled to a crisp, should be on white bread. No butter. No sauce. I would eat it along with a mug of coffee but right now - coffee - yuk!

You may wonder where the healthy stuff is. I've just had my lunch: M&S pasta and pine nut salad with radishes and cucumber and 4 slices of salami. I do try.

Every so often I daydream about a Chinese takeaway: spring rolls, spicy chicken wings, beef in black bean sauce with peppers. That does me two days. I'm just not up for it right now but one day! I'll know when I'm getting better: I'll start buying digestive biscuits and butter. Always a wee treat when we had been ill.