Just Desserts
Tony Greenway

Sitting down to watch Nigella Lawson's latest helping of TV last month, I was pleased to see that she had decided to make an entire series dedicated to comfort food. Well, it all looked pretty comforting to me.
Being a man, when I watch Nigella on the telly I can never remember what she's cooked even though I watched her cook it, like, five seconds ago. Look, it's not my fault. She always flirts with me and I get distracted. And if at any point she licks cream from the beaters of her food whisk, I actually pass out for a few minutes.
But in her latest series, the recipes got at least half of my attention. True they were created by a doe-eyed minx wearing - for reasons that must have to do with ratings - a clingy satin nightdress; but on the menu were soothing, re-assuring, feel-good comfort foods to help warm your body and nourish your soul. Nigella made pork chops in cider with gnocchi. She made roast poussin with sweet potatoes. She made softly whipped Amaretto syllabub. She made - oh God - caramelised custard which she poured extravagantly over her lovingly arranged croissants. Phew. If the camera was going to film her eating those in bed, I thought, I'll need to break out the smelling salts. There duly followed a lingering shot of Nigella, in bed, in her nightie, licking caramelised custard off a spoon.
When I recovered consciousness, I decided to make my own plate of comfort food. Because when I cook - and when I say cook, I actually mean 'reheat' - comfort food is what I do best. And when I say 'best', I actually mean 'that won't attract the attention of my local council's Health and Safety officers'.
I love comfort food. Relationship going through a bad patch? Never mind. Have a plate of Irish stew with dumplings. Work getting you down? Who cares when you have a bowl of semolina pudding at your disposal? If you're going to attempt to enter the comfort food zone, though, there are various rules that must be observed. For example, comfort food main courses are always hot and fairly gloopy (you'll never hear a bowl of leafy green salad described as 'comforting', for instance). Plus, it has to be eaten in the autumn or winter when the nights are drawing in. Yep, believe it or not, comfort food is seasonal.
It also helps if the dish you are planning to make is something you associate with your childhood. For instance, when I was a boy my mother would make cheese potato every Friday night and that, surely, must be the ultimate comfort dish. Over the years, I have developed my own version and I would like to share it with you now. Don't worry. I have done this many times before. I would even go as far as to say that I'm something of a cheese potato professional.
What you do is, you get some cheese and stir it into some mashed potatoes (it sounds tricky but you'll soon get the hang of it). I couldn't be bothered with all that peeling, so I'm using Smash. Then you get some spaghetti - it has to be tinned and in tomato sauce, mind, not any of that fresh stuff - and place it in one of those warming apparatus thingies. You know. What are they called? Yes: that's it. Microwaves.
Anyway. Give the spag a blast for a couple of minutes. Then you poach an egg. Et voila! You have cheese potato. Be careful to present the dish professionally, however: the poached egg should always go on top of the potato, but the tinned spaghetti should on no account mingle with the Smash. And don't forget the tomato ketchup. Also, I'd recommend a fairly crisp Pinot Grigio to go with this meal, or, if that isn't available, you can always do what my mum used to do. Serve it with a cup of tea.
By the way, that sound you can hear is Elaine Lemm, our Food and Wine Editor, reading this, groaning, and repeatedly hitting her forehead against her desk.
OK, so this dish is not sophisticated. Some people might say that it's not even remotely appealing. But I should point out that 'afters' is, because in our house it's always the same when we have cheese potato for 'mains': strawberry jam sponge with custard. Yum!