Every time I have a visitor from the US, I'm asked the same questions.... What can we bring you from home? What food do you need?

Now I have a pretty standard list of food items that we are always wanting:

• Ranch dressing
• Taco Sauce
• Jerky
• Mac and Cheese (velveeta or kraft... we don't discriminate!)
• Nutter butters
• Peanut Butter M&Ms

Sometimes you just want some comfort food -- which is why we also sometimes just improvise and make our own comfort food at home.  We have three things that just simply make us feel like we are at home:

1. Honey BBQ Meatloaf. 

• Try explaining meatloaf to someone who is not American and you find yourself saying 'it's basically large quantities of sausage and hamburger mixed together into a loaf -- and you bake it.  Sometimes you top it with a mixture of bbq sauce and ketchup'.  The result? My non-American friends crinkle their nose and think I'm crazy.  Well most of them ;)
• Either way, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and corn is a treat for us since we don't make it often. The sausage here is not good, so we end up making our own with ground pork and seasonings.  It's all in the sage!

2. Grilled Cheese sandwiches with tomato soup

• Believe it or not, this is not a standard comfort food item.  Here in the UK, they have a similar sandwich called a toastie which is basically two pieces of toast with cheese on the inside. It is toasted on the outside and gooey on the inside.  What's missing in this equation? BUTTER.  We smother both sides of bread with butter and then pan fry them (or if you ask the British, we are deep frying them).  Just saying -- our way is better.  And a resounding amount of people here agree.  Plus who doesn't eat them with tomato soup! It's such a foreign concept here, and they are so lucky to have me :)

3. Big ole bowl of mac and cheese

• Okay, so mac and cheese exists here.  But it's gross most of the time.  It's usually baked so it's dry, and it's always made with sharp cheddar.  This is just an atrocity.  So sometimes we just make a big ole bowl of kraft and sit on the couch indulging.  Thank goodness this is on everyone's list when they visit!

Moral of the story is I should weight 800 pounds, because of all the crap food I eat -- it's a good thing all I do is walk everywhere here!