The term “comfort food” has surprising origins…legend has it that it was none other than Liza Minnelli who first used this term to describe her emotional craving for a hamburger during an interview. She gave us jazz hands, sequins, and a Reason to Eat Our Emotions. I really could not love Liza more. 

And if there is a month that embodies the need for comfort food it is, undoubtedly, November. As the eleventh month of the year, the predecessor to the frenzy of celebrations and parties in December—and the successor to October’s Thanksgiving and Halloween—November would also just like a chance to spark a little joy. There’d be nothing better than to see her tremble with surprise, mascara everywhere, bouquet of roses in hand as she is crowned The Month of Comfort Food. She really does have the perfect constitution for it (bleak, dull, relentless Vancouver rain) and the right conditions to support it (there is literally nothing else going on). She is the pageant queen we’ve all been rooting for: the month that deserves the very best of food that brings Comfort and Joy, with all its memories, flavours, and traditions associated with it. 

November seems extra dark this year, like Mother Nature perhaps went a little too far with how much daylight she tried to save with that extra hour. I’m tempted to crawl home after work to make something nourishing but it still needs to be deliciously decadent to help offset the seasonal sadness that’s lurking around. I consider options; more bread, more butter, more stews, more salt, more fat. Comfort food is not just for when I have been struck with a cold and find myself in bed. As a child, I was never sent to school sick and told to “tough it out.” The first onset of sniffles or a warm forehead was the start of an all-inclusive holiday at home. “You got sick because you sat with wet hair near a drafty window,” my mother would tell me, eyeing the thermometer. It was more likely a standard exposure to an airborne cold virus, but who was I to argue with a woman more powerful than a deep dive into WebMD?. She would immediately make a pot of our version of a soothing chicken noodle soup, Avgolemono—  and serve it with extra lemon while  I caught up on episodes of Days of Our Lives. My mother would eye Victor Kiriakis over her needlepoint and tsk tsk at his underhanded dealings around Salem, but always forgave him because he too was Greek.

As an adult, I don’t wait for a cold to make this creamy, delicious soup—it’s on standby for any night of the week for its comforting powers. This month I provide two versions of the recipe: one for cooks who want to explore the traditional recipe that includes making the broth, or the shortcut we all need when we want a soup in 20 minutes or less. Whatever avgolemono journey you decide to go on will lead you to the same flavourful and comforting soup I’ve grown up with. 

A quick poll on comfort food dinner party ideas brings in expected results from friends and family: they want the Big Reds in November and request I make my hearty meat kokkinisto stew served with a buttery orzo, and offer to bring full-bodied wines to have with it. I like the way a red wine opens, like those who drink it over an evening together. I am typically terrified of an over-revealer but somehow have empathy for ones who have purple-lipped themselves and reveal great tragedies rather than small talk at a dinner party. 

And for dessert, it’s the baklava of my childhood; buttery, crunchy phyllo pastry and layers of orange zest and nuts. Anyone with any level of baking expertise can make a delicious baklava, and every such recipe should be mandatorily called No Bad Baklava Ever. And on that note, there really is No Bad Comfort Food, either. If it makes you feel good, if it reminds you of home, if it connects you to your loved ones, there it is. And I hope you enjoy it with the people who feed your soul too, because as we all know the better the company, the better the meal. Especially in November.