What's your favorite comfort food -- the one you absolutely need to take the chill and dread out of a cold winter day? That was the question in the second hour of a recent Midday show with food nerd and City Paper columnist Henry Hong.

We received all kinds of answers -- from chicken pot pie (apparently the No. 1 choice) to something one fellow called "chicken goup" to the comforting classics of lasagna, chili, a grilled cheese sandwich with Campbell's tomato soup, and baked macaroni and cheese. Our favorite e-mail was from James in Mount Vernon:

"My comfort food is baked chicken leg (the whole thing) coated in whatever dried spices are around, sour cream & butter laden mashed potatoes, and frozen green beans slathered in butter, salt, and pepper.  I grew up dirt-poor in Northern Maine, and though my mom had seemingly endless ways to cook the cheapest meat that she could find (chicken legs or quarters) it was always on the coldest nights in dead of winter, when the wind howling outside our cabin made the already sub-zero temperatures even worse, that she would make this dish followed by home-made hot cocoa. Now, whenever it's cold and miserable outside, especially if I've had a horrible day, I make this dish and it warms me and my spirit up."

Here are a few more:

"I have a variation on the classic grilled American cheese sandwich -- a grilled Swiss (Emmenthaler) on light Jewish rye with apple wood-smoked bacon."
-- BoB H in Ten Hills

"Without a doubt, shepherds pie, but made the English way, chunks of Sunday's lamb roast, onions, celery, green herbs, DEFINITELY NO PEAS OR CARROTS!  Loads of mash on top and fresh or frozen peas or fresh green cabbage or spinach on the side. . . . When my kid was sick, I would take tomato soup from the can, add shaved carrots, dried onions and garlic, powdered ginger, Tabasco and black pepper.  Called 'Sore throat soup', an instant cure-all."
-- Linda

"My favorite comfort foods are Swiss steak with mashed potatoes on the side and pot pie.  Now I don't mean what most people think of pot pie, but the Pennsylvania Dutch version.  It consists of stewed chicken and vegetables plus these fantastic homemade square noodles.  It is truly a pie in a pot!  Although I am a reasonably good cook, no one makes these dishes better than my mom.  I wish I could get her to move to Baltimore!"
-- Lynn in Baltimore