Hi there and thanks for the follow request, @tinken! Unfortunately there's not enough vibe on your profile to check, so...

What's your favorite comfort food (or foods), and why?

I have two: chicken teriyaki and those frozen chicken pot pies. The both stem from my childhood. I grew up poorβ€”not like "on the street" poor, but "we bought some nice shampoo once, and now we refill the bottle with bulk stuff, so it looks like we can afford nice shampoo" poor.

Anyway, I would get sick and stay home from school, but when I could keep food down again, my mom would spring for $7 chicken teriyaki from this little hole in the wall shop near where we lived, and I still associate it with feeling better.

The 99Β’ pot pies were another kind of treat. Since I was a latchkey kid, I made food for myself (whatever was available in the cupboards or freezer). I ate a lot of toaster waffles and skimpy wonderbread sandwiches. But sometimes we'd get those pot pies when they were on sale, and I was (reluctantly) allowed to eat two at a time! So I associate them with being stuffed with a hot meal while I watched cartoons by myself.

Well fuck, this is the first #CAPTCHAlice that made me cry while answering my own question.

@alice @tinken my grandmother was a hoarder. So when we used to go to her house after school (before we were allowed to take the bus on our own) we used to raid her cupboard for these nasty, probably expired, dried "curries" (speech marks added to avoid offending actual curry). Just add water.

They don't make them anymore (it's likely that they hadn't been made for several years before we ate them) and I'm sure that they weren't good for us, but I miss them every day.