Bill Leslie: Turning to comfort food during the pandemic

I particularly enjoyed reading about Renee Chou’s craving of a childhood favorite called Scallion Pancakes. Renee found a recipe on YouTube and made a batch. Everything turned out perfectly.

My brother-in-law craves bread in times of crisis. He’s been cranking out all kinds of recipes including sourdough bagels. I’d love to put some of my homemade pimento cheese on one of those!

My father used to make corn cakes for breakfast on certain Sunday mornings. My mother complained of the huge mess Daddy Leslie made in the kitchen while preparing this Southern delicacy. No one, however, complained about the taste of Daddy’s Corn Cakes. They were light and delicious.

Cindy and I recently had a craving for Shrimp and Grits. Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill is our go-to place for this Southern staple. We located the original Crook’s Corner recipe for shrimp and grits and a revised version adding chicken broth to the list of ingredients and a few other changes.

We had an old-fashioned Shrimp and Grits cookoff!

The NPR show Splendid Table even gave us some recognition. I will tell you more about how things turned out and which recipe was our favorite in my next blog post here on wral.com.

Right now I want to ask you to share your favorite comfort food. bleslie@wral.com is my email address. Tell me what food you’ve been craving over the last couple of months and if you’ve been able to satisfy that hunger for culinary comfort.