On Comfort Foods

Lilly explores grief and Applebee’s on an important anniversary.

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Sep 12, 2024

Real fans may remember a version of this essay from my now defunct food and cooking newsletter, Soupçon. Today marks 9 years since my father passed, so I decided to republish a slightly edited version in his memory. Thanks for reading <3 — LM

I don’t know how to talk about grief without mentioning Applebee’s.

But let me rewind.

The summer before I started 7th grade, I was living with just my dad for the first time and watching him clumsily learn how to be a single parent. And despite us having lived in the same house for 12 years, and having gone on family vacations together, and having sat in the same car for an hour-long drive to school every day for years before I transferred to a closer one, we were beginning to get to know each other for the first time. We were learning such basic things about each other, it was almost funny sometimes. In moments of uncomfortable silence, we’d both stifle a laugh asking a ridiculous question like, “What are your hobbies?” “What food do you like to eat?“ “What movies do you like?”

Other times, our unfamiliarity with each other was less funny. Dad was the silent type, but I wanted to know things about him. I wanted to talk about “Why do you seem so upset?” or “Why did you forget to pick me up from the movies?” or “What are you doing on your computer from before I wake up until after I go to sleep?” Often, when I’d wave my hand in front of his face long enough to sufficiently distract him from the lines and lines of code he was weaving together like a cross-stitch, we’d clash. Neither of us were angry by nature, but we turned each other into yellers. And afterwards, when I’d inevitably cry, my father just didn’t know what to do with me. More than once, he’d earnestly ask me “Wouldn’t it be easier if, when you were sad, you just turned that off?”

Of course I couldn’t, so instead, I’d wash my face in cold water and he’d take me to lunch at Applebee’s.

The first time he offered, it felt wrong. He knew that Mom hadn’t let us eat anything that was fatty enough to drip grease down my chin when I took a bite or that possessed the power to turn my tongue a different color.

Walking in was overstimulating, by design. The decor in an Applebee’s is often entirely red, a color thought to stimulate hunger, the air conditioning is always blasting, and the smell is heavily influenced by the fryers. At our franchise, the walls were plastered in collaged photos of local high schools and their students, an attempt to telegraph intimacy with diners as if we were at a family-owned business.

The lunch crowd was sparse — unlike dinner, when you’d have to slalom between big friend groups from school or the kinds of loud laughing families that let their kids put their elbows on the tables — and we got our pick of the red vinyl booths. I picked one far from the collage of my school in hopes of avoiding classmates, though I doubted anyone would recognize me anyway. I was a new kid, after all — and even worse, I usually spent most of my school lunch hour reading in the library. Glancing up at the photos of what was supposed to be my community, I was overwhelmed at how small my world was: Dad, Alyssa, Mom, Grandma, two friends from my old school, me.

At the table, we didn’t talk about why I ducked my head down whenever anyone opened the front door of the restaurant, or why we had gotten into a fight earlier. It was easier to talk about what we were going to order. For Dad, steak and broccoli and a cup of black coffee. For me, a glass of raspberry lemonade so large and sweet it made me a little sick and chicken fingers with fries. Later, a brownie with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

This became our routine: Fight, forgive (a sort of implied forgiveness, because Russian parents don’t say sorry to children, I was told more than a few times), feast. Fight, forgive, feast. Fight, forgive, feast. Food as comfort became our common ground. Food filled in the gaps in conversation, made up for words unsaid (and those that probably shouldn’t have been said), and found a comfortable silence between us.

At home, Dad and I usually tiptoed around each other’s weird relationships with food. I was insecure because I was a middle school girl with a stomach that felt too soft in comparison to all the midriffs I saw every day. He was insecure because he felt he was too stationary at his computer all day, too slow on the rink with the other men in his 40+ rec ice hockey league. I’d spend a few days drinking orange juice from a measuring cup while trying to obsessively count calories on the MyFitnessPal app — which I’d delete after a few days, and then eventually redownload, then delete, then repeat. He’d declare he was going on a diet and eat nothing but cashews all day, and then grill up a salt-and-peppered, much-too-rare steak that I’d take a big bite of before bed.

But all bets were off at Applebee’s.

Those 6 years between the real beginning of our relationship and his passing, the ones during which we relied on each other so much in so many unfair ways, still sometimes make me shudder when I think too much about them. But those moments when the only sounds escaping our lips were slurps, swallows, and burps make me smile, too.

I learned an important lesson from these lunches with my dad: It’s okay to be comforted by food. I’ve repeated this short, stupidly simple sentence to myself many times throughout my 20s. It’s a necessary reminder as I find my body changing so often that I feel like I see myself exclusively in funhouse mirrors, one that I can thank him for.

I haven’t had lunch at Applebee’s in a long, long, long time, and I don’t know when I will again. But when I want to remember my dad and get excited about a meal, I picture myself in that red vinyl booth, asking if we can get dessert and knowing the answer will be yes. — LM

Hunter-gatherer corner

What we’ve read and DMed each other about lately — our internet bounty is below!

“Is Affirmation Culture Sabotaging Our Friendships and Ourselves?” by Kathryn Jezer-Morton - The Cut — It can be so hard to hear that your friend doesn’t agree with one of your decisions, making it even harder to be the one to naysay in the group chat. Jezer-Morton’s piece put words to a feeling I didn’t realize I was experiencing, and is a must read this week. — LM
“The Dissociation Machine” by P. E. Moskowitz - Mental Hellth — This newsletter is on the verge of becoming a P. E. Moskowitz stan account, but I always appreciate their level-headed takes on the mental health crisis in the U.S. This piece posits the surprisingly controversial question of “What if we didn’t joke about 9/11?” and offers an earnest explanation for why we should allow ourselves to feel the grief and fear that comes with events like it. — LM
“Eternity” by Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge — This essay about rewatching Girls isn’t really about rewatching Girls, but time and philosophy and the pervavise stuckness of culture. It’s so, so good, and perfectly timed for whatever you’re going to be rewatching this fall. — MF
“it’s fall and i am a new person and i have a cardigan to prove it” by Emily North - Angel Cake — The back to school feeling that always comes with this time of year is so cute. I’ve been successful so far at resisting redoing my entire wardrobe, but check on me in 30 days or so. North’s piece really perfectly captures the way the cooler weather beckons at us with hope, while also encouraging us to spender in softer, less shiny ways than we do in the summer (but of course, just as needlessly sometimes.) I do like that it feels like everyone’s reinventing themselves, taking stock, making plans for a better self, Virgo energy some would say, et cetera. Even if the window before the dooms comes with the cold is small, I am so excited right now! — MF

Why Not?

Why Not? is our biweekly list of recommendations. Think recipes, gift guides, podcasts, clothes, and anything we consider to be generally chic. Have a suggestion? Let us know!

Going to a baseball game — Guys, why didn’t anyone tell me going to a baseball game is fun??? Me and Melinda famously went to a Red Sox game like one day after we moved to Boston and hated it (it was cold, we were sitting in the nose bleeds, we didn’t know the rules, and we couldn’t afford a hot dog). That biased me against them, but I went the other night and now I’m obsessed (It’s cheap! The hot dogs were so good! I got there early and got a statue of Jimmy Buffett for FREE!) so you will catch me at Fenway Park regularly next summer. — LM
Silk electric heated eye mask - Amazon — My little sister gifted this to me, and it’s become a staple before bed, first thing in the morning, or as a midday salve. I struggle with dry eyes, and with the seasons changing I’ve been really feeling it. You don’t have to microwave this one, and it heats up really quickly! — MF

This Is Why!

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