I haven’t posted at DU in a few weeks. Did you miss me? I’ve been down in the dumps, but I’ve lurked here and I plan to make the olive bread and other things soon. I've been self-medicating with comfort food as much as possible.

My brother passed away recently. He was the first of our very large family, and was probably the best of the bunch, so it was a particularly difficult week. Your mind can’t process it and you aren’t sure what to do. Still, your body keeps going and eventually – you have to eat. And boy, does death bring out the comfort food!

My Sicilian mother married into a family of south Georgia farmers. As this brother said in a wedding toast last spring, “It was the Sopranos meet the Dukes of Hazzard.”

We are natural foodies -- all of us. Even in death.

Pans of lasagna, sandwiches, sausage dishes, olives. The church ladies are an organized food army prepared for duty at a moment’s notice! I couldn’t put a bite in my mouth. But I was overwhelmed by the dessert table which truly looked like something Martha Stewart put together herself. Doilies of brownies and cookies and mini cheesecakes. Silver platters of cakes, pies, cannoli and fruit bars. Yogurt dip with piles and piles of fruit. I spotted a three-tier arrangement of chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies and those little peanut butter kisses. These had been baked in mini muffin tins and they looked so cute. I couldn’t help it so I took a little plastic cup and filled it with the cookies.

I would take them for later… when I needed them.

The burial took place on the farm down south in the family cemetery just past the chicken coops. Everyone gathered at my aunt’s house afterward to talk and … eat.

Turnip greens and mac and cheese. Chicken and dumplings, my sister squealed! FRIED pork chops, I squealed back! Butter peas and cabbage and green beans with ham. Dressings and squash casseroles. Gallons of sweet tea. Carrot cakes and strawberry fluff. Every possible inch of tables and counter space was filled with the outpouring of love from my extended family. My sister-in-law, in her state of mind somewhere between grief and exhaustion, looked around and said, “I should have gone first. Your brother would have loved this.”

Online I’ve been berated for saying food is love. I don’t think I mean *all* food is love, but there’s no denying the love you feel when you are surrounded by the home-baked offerings of friends, family, and neighbors.

Hey, Carla from top Chef agrees with me, lol!