Get your greens.

In my view, real comfort food is the food which makes you feel nourished and replenished, a meal where the “stuff” that your body so intuitively craved feels like perfection on a plate. When G and I touched down in Chicago, the extra 5 hours we now had to spend awake when our bodies were craving sleep was just enough to have us teetering on the brink of culinary confusion: was the mean before bed to be Coco Pops or Kung Pow Chicken? Having been fortunate enough to make a number of long haul journeys, I know that the fastest way to regulate your body and relieve jet lag is to get the right meals at the right time, stay hydrated and power through as close to the new bed time as possible. Yet, the weird nutritional cravings just seem too hard to ignore sometimes.

My craving after a flight is pretty much always the same: broccoli. Steamed, stir fried, boiled, it doesn't matter just as long as it's plentiful. I remember arriving back from various Melbourne to Manchester flights and my dad dutifully shlepping to Sainsburys on the morning of my arrival to ensure that we had a fridge full of the stuff, even when I was arriving home at 6am... So imagine my delight when G and I stumbled across a Bubba Shrimp diner at the esplanade in Chicago, a 10 minute walk from the Hyatt where we were staying (I know, the Hyatt: fancy,,,). We stood outside and gazed through bleery eyes at the menu: prawns by the kilo bucket, bottomless root beer and (“Woah! Stop!) my favourite, broccoli.

In less time than it would take to recall whether it is the stem or the floret which contains all the nutrition, we were sitting in a booth giggling at all the 'Forrest Gump' memorabilia in our, now well developed, jet lagged zombie states, We were encouraged to go for more than a kilo of shrimp, but G showed impeccable restraint and I focused all my attention on the mountain of the beautiful green stuff: fresh, steamed, butter free. All cravings met.