The ancient Spartans saw food purely as fuel, and both royalty and peasants alike ate black bread with a blood and vinegar soup. The Romans, on the other hand, luxuriated in food as a symbol of wealth, and are famous for their exorbitant banquets of rare ingredients eaten lying down and punctuated by trips to the vomitorium. These are the age-old equivalents of living on a spelt and seaweed diet or dining exclusively on truffles and hand fed lobster. Today some people still run to these extremes, but for me, and many others I suspect, food is not purely fuel or status symbol, but comfort. It is no big secret that comfort food is rarely meaty or green. Starch is king in the land of comfort food: sugary donuts, buttery mashed potatoes, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, pancakes with syrup, cherry pie ala-mode, French fries, fresh bread with sweet butter, tater tots, or my personal favorite: white rice, with anything.  Why doesn’t kale or a chicken leg give you the same buzz? You could argue that sugars and starches cause the brain to release the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is responsible for producing a sense of wellbeing and calm. This is the brain chemical that drugs like Prozac and Paxil work to elevate. You could also argue that when you were a kid, and you fell and scraped your knee, your mom handed you a cookie, and not a plate of steamed spinach to cheer you up. So in the spirit of comfort and good cheer, I give you this recipe for baked ziti, or lazy lasagna.  It all get mixed up in your tummy any way right? BAKED ZITI (Courtesy of Simplyrecipes.com) Ingredients 1 pound ziti (can sub penne) pasta Olive oil 1 pound bulk Italian sausage or ground...