Comfort Food and Home …

It’s funny — last time I wrote about food, I was learning to cook Spanish dishes. Now, a few months later, I’m still cooking Spanish food (and loving it), but lately my kitchen has started to smell a little more like home.

As the weather turns cooler, I find myself chasing the kind of flavors I grew up with. Not because local food isn’t amazing — it’s actually gorgeous, especially here where everything is fresh and grown close by — but because there’s something grounding about recreating the familiar with what’s on hand.

I’ve been experimenting with the comfort foods I can’t just buy here.
Blue cheese dressing for a wedge salad (a complete success, by the way).
Taco salad made with homemade seasoning because there’s no packet to tear open.
Mac and cheese built on a béchamel base with the Spanish cheeses I can find — cheddar if I’m lucky, but often something more local, sharper, a little unexpected.

There’s hummus in the shops, but never the kind I love, so I’ve started blending my own roasted pepper or sun-dried tomato versions from scratch – including soaking the garbanzo beans overnight. I’ve learned to make a Dijon vinaigrette that taste like the kind of salad dressing I used to think only restaurants could get right. And I’ve made copy-cat McDonald’s Apple Pie that Ronald himself would be proud of.

None of it is fancy. But it’s mine. It’s food that reminds me who I am while using what’s around me — a sort of cultural remix you can eat with a fork.

Spanish food has taught me so much: patience, simplicity, the value of really good olive oil. But lately, as the weather is cooling, I’ve been reaching back for the recipes that feel like home — chicken soup, hearty pasta, the idea of bread warm from the oven. I’ve been staring down sourdough starter tutorials like they’re some kind of chemistry exam. Maybe I’ll try. Maybe not. We’ll see.

For now, the kitchen smells like roasted garlic and comfort.
And that feels like progress — a little homesickness, turned into something warm.