I missed putting up a blog post today because the past 48 hours felt more like 400 hours. Food, sleep, and writing took a back seat to the day job, packaging gifts for my church’s angel tree, graduating from Citizens’ Police Academy, packing books to send to contest winners, and schlepping a twenty-two pound box to UPS to return a wrong order to Amazon so I could get a refund. Not to mention the usual stuff: feeding the cat, taking out garbage, checking email and voicemail and text messages to make sure I didn’t miss an appointment or deadline or bill due date, “maintaining my social media presence” (that phrase) to keep Facebook and Twitter from sending me gentle reminders about how followers of my author page/feed want to hear from me—you get the picture. I left the day job, late, today with a to-do list longer than it was when I arrived at the office this morning, which means an early start tomorrow to play catch-up.So what did I do when I finally got home tonight, besides say a prayer of thanks that the cat sitter rescheduled her meet-and-greet with Agatha? I headed for the local pizzeria for some comfort food. Yeah, I know “emotional” eating is bad for you but sometimes I don’t care. A meatball and sausage sandwich and a bowl of minestrone soup (loaded with vegetables, by the way) went a long way toward making up for a missed lunch and freezing temps. Food plays a big role in much crime fiction. From the culinary cozy subgenre’s recipes to Nero Wolfe’s epicurean meals to Agatha Christie’s frequent choice of a murder weapon, food appears in mysteries again and again. In her November 2016 article in The Guardian, “Dining With Death: Crime Fiction’s Long Affair With Food,” crime writer Miranda Carter lists several detectives known as much for what they eat as for the crimes they solve: the aforementioned, Nero Wolfe, Inspector Montalbano, Yashim, Pepe Carvalho, Inspector Maigret. Food puts in a more-than-passing appearance in Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade stories. While Agatha Christie’s poison-laced morsels hardly qualify as comfort food, in many of the other crime stories meals form the center piece of pleasant rituals that provide the detective—and the reader—with temporary respite from the horrors and stress of their work. Like my meatballs, sausage, and minestrone. While my life is far from horrible, it is stressful. Some days I feel as if dozens of things are happening at once and I’m running from crisis to crisis until I reach a point where I can’t even remember what day it is. (On Tuesday, I felt as if, surely, it must be Friday.) I drag myself home, exhausted and cranky. But, with a good meal and an hour or so, I feel ready to take on the world again. What’s your favorite comfort food? How do you unwind after a stressful day?
