Gloomy Tuesday Food

So, I'm bummed today - not stick-your-head-in-the-oven bummed, but more of a tired, overworked, it's-grey-and-gloomy, haven't-had-a-vacation-in-2-and-a-half-years bummed. Because even severe bummage (wow that sounded bad...) can't keep my mind out of the kitchen (though as I reassured you before, it's not actually in the oven), I'm always interested to see what will happen to my eating habits when I feel low. Either one of two things happen:

a. I will open the fridge at meal times, look at the unprocessed raw stuff-that-must-be-cooked, curse my whole foods mentality and go curl up on the couch with a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter,

or

b. I will eat everything in sight, including food I had carefully prepared and planned for the next week and end by creating some crazy Franken-cookie out of the remnants of my baking shelf (chocolate wasabi pea studded oatmeal/rice bars anyone?)and then lay on the couch bemoaning the fact that I still feel bummed and have eaten an entire week's worth of calories.

Today seems to be an interesting hybrid of the two. I ate my normal breakfast, but then followed that up at 11:00 with chai and the rest of the vegan mashed potatoes. However, I now feel no inclination to prepare lunch and have left a half dozen perfectly tasty glazed pumpkin cookies just sitting on my counter, so maybe I'm acting out the former attitude after all.

This makes me want to create the perfect rainy-gloomy-need-a-vacation day recipe, but I'm not sure what it should be. I don't have any one comfort food that I always turn to. I'm comforted by different foods during different crises. Teddy Grahams and Venti Mochas got me through finals anxiety in college. Home-baked bread and gnocchi in vodka sauce eased my post-college what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life fears. Bacardi Mojitos and Papa John's pizza were my friends during my I-hate-Knoxville phase. I turned to Vermont sharp cheddar and Oreo ice cream to quiet my pregnancy fears. Tortilla chips and hummus got me through newborn hell.

I guess I just don't have a one-size-fits-all comfort food, which I suppose is good, because life would be very painful if it was something animal-product based. However, this is probably what leads me to either eat nothing because nothing sounds appealing, or eat the entire contents of my kitchen when depressed. I just haven't found the rainy-gloomy-need-a-vacation day food yet, but something tells me in a year or so, I will be saying, "And I eat 'insert name of delicious morsel here' when it's rainy, gloomy, and I'm tired and want to go on vacation."

Oh, and my head would just get really, really hot and begin to smell of burnt-on grease if I stuck it in my oven - it's electric ;).