Oreo cookies - the original mass-produced comfort food...

And double-stuf oreos, well - they're double the comfort. Which makes me think of Phuti Radiphuti and the Double Comfort Furniture Shop in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books. Which are, come to think of it, comfort reading at its finest. If anyone had ever told me that I would love reading a detective series set in Botswana - well, I don't think I would have - but I do and I can't wait for the next installment. I just finished reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Girl Who Married a Lion, a wonderful collection of African folk tales - with a brief forward by none other than Mma Ramotswe. One of these days I am going to start reading his other series about Isabel Dalhousie, but for right now I have them secreted away in my reading drawer, along with some old Jean Shepherd books that I've been meaning to re-read after many years. If ever you are seriously in need of a good laugh, read his short story Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss - and you will be whisked back to every disastrous family vacation you ever went on and you will have a renewed appreciation of memories of summer travel in the family station wagon.

Uh-oh - better add this dislcaimer for the FTC: I bought the oreos on my own and no one from Nabisco offered me any enticements to sing the praises of the double-stuf. I am also not acquainted with either Mr. McCall Smith, who is living, or with Mr. Shepherd, who is dead, and have been offered no incentives to make positive comments about their work. There, that should above cover it.