Comfort Food: not comfort food but rewarding
21 May 2025 - Photos by Dahlia Katz

There is a cooking adage, that is often presented as a "rule," that only five ingredients should be used in creating a dish. Bette, the host of a cooking show titled Comfort Food, immediately breaks that rule while making waffles. Comfort Food, the play, breaks the same rule with abandon. Comfort Food, the cooking show, began as a YouTube project for single mom Bette and her son KitKat. It seems to have become a cable television production that is moderately successful but struggling. Bette, the ever charming Zorana Sadiq (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mixtape, CHILD-ISH, Towards Youth) who would probably be an excellent cooking show host, keeps digressing on the topic of how difficult it is to get children to eat with enthusiasm. Her producer or agent, it isn't quite clear, keeps cutting in with advice and telling her to stay on topic. In this fragmented world, ratings are important. KitKat, the impressive Noah Grittani, has grown to become a mildly sullen teenager who produces his own YouTube and TikTok videos that decry climate change and are calls to activism. While he has a large following, he worries that his numbers are not enough to bring about change. And it bothers him that his mother is too busy to have watched his videos.

The two have a testy but seemingly loving relationship. KitKat returns to Comfort Food the cooking show for a guest appearance and it does not go well. KitKat challenges her on air to produce more sustainable recipes. The resulting viral moment, causes the producers of Comfort Food to position Bette as an old-fashioned but hip chef for whom taste trumps sustainability and health. To that end they add more guests, all played with remarkable skill by Grittani, to create conflict and ratings. KitKat's videos become even more strident and desperate with buzzwords like "Columbine" and "Skane Bow" cropping up. An intriguing theme of what is important in cooking — being a foodie and living for taste, or being responsible to the environment — crops up and weaves throughout the play. Bette is still trying to get KitKat, who infamously refused her breast milk, to eat. Comfort Food the cooking show, gets a new theme song ("Are you ready? Are you ready? Here comes Bette") that is hilarious but the satirical edge doesn't stick. Sadiq the playwright is more interested in the drama between the mother and son.

The difficulty of raising a child, of producing comfort food for them, parallels the difficulty of producing a popular television show. How far does one compromise to make them happy? How does one cope when a labour of love becomes a job? It is fascinating and difficult material and Comfort Food the play is wonderful when it is focussed. Unfortunately there are all sorts of other ingredients stirred into the mix. We bounce from idea to idea, from extraneous metaphor to plot contrivances, to the point where we lose track of the central relationship and exactly what is trying to be conveyed. This is reflected in an ingenious but fussy set by Sim Suzer. A lot of time is spent moving the cooking islands around though I was astonished at how much prop storage space the islands contained. Admiring the design is a good thing, but not thoughts that should be occupying the audience mid-drama. There are also ingenious projections by Tori Morrison that let us into KitKat's online mind and facilitate the cooking close-ups, but gratuitous shtick with a connecting cable calls attention to the skill without offering a thematic reason. 

Director Mitchell Cushman (Performance Review, A Public Reading of an Unpublished Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, No Save Points, Lessons in Temperament, The Tape Escape, Hand to God, The Flick, Dr Silver A Celebration of Life, Mr Burns A Post-Electric Play) is also listed as the dramaturg and his skill and ease at bringing Comfort Food to life would have benefitted with more ruthlessness towards the text. There are savory ideas and themes in Comfort Food, just perhaps a spice or two too many. That is not to say that Comfort Food is not enjoyable, is not comfort food. Sadiq is amiable on camera and frazzled off, but we feel her pain and her longing to connect with KitKat. Both as host and in a monologue, Sadiq interacts directly with the audience and the fourth wall is not broken, it just melts at her command. Grittani is stunningly naturalistic as he shifts into the skins of the guests, donning slight accents and mannerisms to transform. And he is believable as a volatile teenager, not just because he is practically a teenager in real life, but because he reacts and is engaged with Sadiq. It is a remarkable debut. The ratings competition between them is real.

Comfort Food is not comfort food. Sadiq has too much she is digesting. Cooking is messy. Creating content is messy and stressful. Raising children is messy, stressful and heartbreaking. But all three are rewarding. And Comfort Food becomes rewarding as two central metaphors tie together with small successes making it all worthwhile with a low-key heartwarming finale.