chicken pot pie: a food narrative

It seems all of my post-wedding posts are destined to be about cooking or reading.

I have quite a few friends who share my love of cooking. These friends also tend to love talking about cooking. My friend, Laurie, who is not an avid cook, often laments the conversational turns that occur when two or more of her culinary-enthusiast friends get together. She is not fond of what she calls "the food narrative," especially when it goes on and on through recipe comparisons and tales of dinners gone wrong and mild bragging about confections made perfectly. She would probably not enjoy this post.

A few months ago, my sister told me about a cooking experiment she had conducted. She started with our grandmother's chicken and dumplings recipe. She added a few ingredients: peas, carrots, and onions. She topped it with canned biscuits and baked until they were golden brown. The result was similar to chicken pot pie.

I experimented with her accidental recipe. I made a few pots of something we christened "chicken pot pie soup." I thought this was as close as I might ever come to making actual chicken pot pie, which seemed to me such a complicated dish.

Then I consulted my favorite cookbook, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and I learned how to make honest-to-goodness chicken pot pie. I made it thick; I made it soupy. I seasoned it with sage; I seasoned it with thyme. I made it with a biscuit topping; I made it with the traditional savory tart topping. Most importantly, I learned that, despite seeming complex and time consuming, chicken pot pie can be incredibly easy because both the filling and the crust can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge.

After a few attempts, I finally deemed the pot pie good enough to cook for other people.Last night I served it to some friends. It was our first post-wedding-day entertaining experience. (Thanks Mindy, Michael, and Dashiell, for a wonderful evening!)

This recipe is definitely becoming a go-to meal for us. Now that I'm comfortable with the basic recipe, I'm beginning to think about variations: a meat other than chicken? A vegetarian version?  Different vegetables with the chicken?

I once had a vegetarian pot pie made with sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and cheddar cheese. It was delicious. I wonder if I could duplicate it. I've read suggestions to use everything from green beans to rutabagas with the chicken. I don't think I've ever cooked a rutabaga!

The thought of cooking a rutabaga (or any other unfamiliar food item) makes me think of scenes from the movie Julie and Julia. As she works her way through Julia Child's cookbook, Julie more than once expresses her anxiety about preparing pate de canard en croute, boned stuffed duck in a pastry crust. The obstacle, as she explains, is that she first has to bone a duck.

I love the scene where Julie has placed the duck on her coffee table. She hovers over it with a boning knife while watching a video recording of Julia Child explaining how to bone a duck.

I can easily picture myself sitting at my desk--mouse in one hand, rutabaga in the other--watching YouTube videos that explain how to peel and prepare this unfamiliar vegetable.

book swap books

About a month ago I participated in a book exchange. Although most of my books are still in boxes in the back of a closet, I managed to find a couple that would be suitable for swapping with others. ("Suitable" in this context means "not something I have to hang onto in order to finish my dissertation.")

I gained two new books--a popular novel by a bestselling writer and a nonfiction novel that a friend recommended to me several years ago. Between wedding planning and teaching twice as many classes as I intended to this semester, I doubted I would have time to read them before summer. A little insomnia, however, goes a long way. I've already finished both books.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Dan Brown's books are about as satisfying as a sugary snack: they give me a temporary excited buzzy feeling, but ultimately they let me down.   My experience reading The Lost Symbol was much like my previous experiences reading The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. I was quickly drawn into the novel, quickly finished reading it, and almost instantly forgot most of its contents.

The puzzles Brown embeds in his books are intriguing ... for a few minutes. His characters are interesting ... for a few pages. His plots are entertaining ... for a few hours. The Lost Symbol is the sort of book I always hope to have on hand when a semester ends so I can indulge in a effortlessly easy-to-read narrative. His prose is nearly seamless. Unlike many other books, Brown's don't trip me up with awkward phrasing or bog me down in poorly constructed sentences. Also unlike other books, Brown's don't cause me to fret over a too-contrived plot while laboriously reading through the chapters. However, I also don't feel like I've gained anything when I finish a Dan Brown book.


I've begun to think of Dan Brown as Robert Jordan's polar opposite. Several years ago one of my cousins recommended Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I thought to myself, Highly derivative and ridiculously long fantasy novels in a series that goes on and on and on and ON? Why not?! I read quite a few of them, too, (and found them less derivative than I expected) until I could take no more of Jordan's convoluted prose. All of the novels are over 800 pages, and I read almost every sentence while fighting an urge to grab my red pen. I wanted to make editing marks all over the pages. Only one other writer--Kathy Reichs, author of the Temperance Brennan novels on which the television series Bones is loosely based--has had this effect on me. I also stopped reading her series because I felt compelled to read with the book in one hand and my red pen in the other. Reichs and Jordan both drew me into their stories, but their prose made me nuts. Brown's prose is smooth, but I never truly care about the characters or the plot.

Incidentally, none of these authors makes me irritated enough to toss books across the room. That distinction belongs solely to Gertrude Stein. I'll save that for another post. I need to read some more Stein soon for my dissertation.


The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
This nonfiction novel drew me in slowly at first but absolutely fascinated me by the end. It's part true crime and part cultural history. It feels a bit like reading a novel, but it's actually nonfiction interlaced with some fiction techniques. It's similar to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, but it has a broader focus and weaves together many narrative threads. Larson tells the stories of the architects who organized the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, a serial killer who opened a hotel near the Fair's location, an engineer named Ferris who designed a massive wheel for the Fair, a landscape artist named Olmstead who helped design the fair grounds, and several other figures.

When a friend recommended this book a few years ago, I read the back cover and wasn't interested. From the blurb I expected the book to be much more about the serial killer H. H. Holmes. Any blurbs or reviews that focus primarily on Holmes inaccurately represent the book. Though it does sketch some of Holmes' grisly activities, the  book is much more about the Chicago World's Fair and late-nineteenth-century America. Some of the most delightful moments in the book are unexpected cameos by famous folks: an unnamed architect who is fired from the Fair project is later identified as Frank Lloyd Wright; a young journalist visiting the city of Chicago for the first time turns out to be Theodore Dreiser; Mark Twain arrives in Chicago but never leaves his hotel room.

Much like Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, this text left my head chock full of interesting ideas and makes me want to read more by the author. In Larson's case, I may track down a copy of Isaac's Storm, which is about the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston.

my 2010 reading recap:
10. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
9. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
8. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
7. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
6. An Acceptable Time by Madeline L'Engle
5. Many Waters by Madeline L'Engle
4. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L'Engle
3. A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle
2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
1. The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

married life

We're enjoying the process of settling into married life. We both had a few days off work after the wedding, and we used part of that time to do some cleaning and decorating. I'm really enjoying how nice (some parts of) the house are starting to look. This weekend we plan to finish removing the old wallpaper in the kitchen and in the downstairs bathroom.

About six days into our marriage, we also finally had time to start cooking again. We're both pretty good cooks, and we both enjoy cooking on a regular basis, trying new recipes, and perfecting favorite recipes. This past weekend we tried some new ones and brought out some old ones. I made paella for Friday's dinner (our first married date night!). I've been working on this recipe for a while now, but I had never made paella for Terry. We made waffles and an omelet for brunch on Sunday. Neither of us had ever made waffles before, and we really enjoyed making delicious ones with our new waffle iron. Now we can't wait to try variations on the basic recipe. Sunday night I dusted off an old family recipe and made taco salads.

Tonight Terry has prepared a big pot of beans, and I'm making cornbread. One of my favorite parts of married life is definitely having a spouse who shares my love of cooking. I'm fond of of telling people that I'm not too shabby in the kitchen but Terry is even better. He's both more ambitious a cook (he tried the really hard recipes) and more consistent (he's got the recipes that ALWAYS turn out delicious).

all about tea (well, more about other stuff actually)

Many people who know me well were surprised to find out I'm having a wedding instead of a nice, efficient elopement. For many years, I've said I'd prefer to elope. It's tidy. No muss, no fuss. No complicated planning. No worrying about etiquette rules you might have overlooked or might have misunderstood. No wearing a poofy dress in a really unflattering color. I gave all of these reasons. I was adamant about my preference for elopement. No one doubted me.

For many years, however, I've also said, "But I know if I end up with Terry, there's going to be a wedding instead of an elopement." No one doubted this either.

From the beginning of our planning, there has been some tension between his notion of an ideal wedding--a huge celebration with all our friends and family--and my notion of an ideal wedding, which would probably involve just the two of us saying "I do" somewhere in the California wine country or maybe tying the knot in Vegas with an Elvis impersonator officiating. (Fat Elvis only, please. Complete with bedazzled white jumpsuit and plenty of sweat. I think people are missing the point if they choose to be married by young Elvis.)

To be more precise: elopement would have been my ideal wedding until I made it most of the way through the planning and began to realize some of the invaluable things I have gained by going through this process.

First, Terry and I understand each other better. The wedding has really made us talk our way through a lot of differences in our personalities (most of them revolving around his extroversion and my introversion). I know we'll eventually look back and laugh about some of our flawed first attempts at compromise and our misguided attempts to please each other without fully understanding what the other person wanted. Other people may also remember these early miscommunications. We have already begun apologizing to the groomsmen for saying to them, "Oh, just wear a brown suit. Any suit. Any shade." We sincerely intended for this to be simple and easy. It was not simple and easy. We are so sorry, guys.

Second, I feel connected to our pasts and our future in a way I would not have without this whole experience. We've had many occasions over the last few months to talk about our families, from grandparents who are no longer with us to children who are currently no more than the shadow of a plan of a possible idea. As part of our premarital counseling, we each had to draw up a family tree. Because of that exercise, I later got to see an enormous book of genealogy that traces part of Terry's family back hundreds of years. Terry didn't get to see any genealogies of my family, but, when we went to my parents' house to dig through some old photos, he did get to play with an adorable baby goat. He decided that in the future he'd like to live somewhere he can also keep goats.

Third, I feel more connected to a community of people than I could have possibly managed in such a short time without the wedding forcing me outside my introvert's comfort zone. Even before Terry and I got engaged, we made it a priority to deal with some religious differences. Terry assured me that if I got to know the folks from his church we would be halfway to resolving those differences. He was right, probably in more ways than he realized. I'm getting to know some wonderful people, but I'm also getting acquainted with a type of Christianity that values community, that values being active in a group of people who actively share with each other all of life's events, both the joyful ones and the sorrowful ones. With every interaction, these folks teach me something new about how to live a life that is connected to others rather than disconnected.

Finally, I believe I promised to say something about tea. It was teapots that got me thinking about some of the stuff I wrote above.

Yesterday, Terry and I were cleaning out some kitchen cupboards and making space for bridal shower and wedding presents we have received. Before anything new could go into the cupboards, some stuff had to come out of the cupboards. We're both in our early 30s, and we both love to cook. We've had a lot of time to accumulate kitchen stuff. We realized a few months ago (when I was finally convinced to create a wedding registry) that when we combine our belongings we have too many of some things and utterly lack other things. For example, I found seven can openers in our kitchen yesterday, but every time we bake we remember we don't own a cooling rack.

In the midst of all the cleaning and cataloging, I had occasion to think about another item we have in duplicate: tea pots. With the photos below, I'll explain why these duplicates are a pleasure to have and maybe how they tie into the ramblings above.

Two weekends ago, the folks from church gave us a shower. I was overwhelmed by the attendance at the shower, by the number of people who were thinking about us and helping us begin our marriage. These are the lovely teapot and sugar bowl we received from our registry. I washed them and placed them on this shelf. I can' wait to make tea for us and use these to serve it.


This is a Corningware teapot that Terry has had for a few years now. He stared collecting Corningware--specifically pieces with this blue flower pattern--because he remembered meals his mom cooked in similar dishes. His collection got a little out of control, and now we have so much of blue-flower-patterned Corningware that we had to pack some up until we have a larger kitchen. (We did not yet pack away the multiple 5-quart casseroles he and his mom are using to make lasagna for the rehearsal dinner. It's funny how things unexpectedly come in handy.) This teapot, however, gets used almost every day to warm the water for our tea. It can almost always be seen hanging out on the stovetop ready to make the next cups or next pot. (in this photo it was actually headed for the sink because it needed to be washed.)




This is a cast iron tea pot that I've had for a few years now. I picked it out specifically because it takes me a while to drink even a partial pot of tea when I'm drinking tea alone. The cast iron keeps tea hot for quite a while, but its heat-retaining properties are not so necessary now that I have someone to drink tea with me most of the time.



This is a tea set that belonged to my maternal grandmother. She passed it on to me a year or so before she died. I adored her, and she is the grandparent to whom I was closest. When my mom was a little girl, a friend of my grandmother's visited England and brought this set back as a gift for my grandmother. I've never seen anyone drink tea from it, but it had a prime spot in Mawmaw's china cabinet for many years where, if I remember correctly, it was surrounded by odds and ends of china patterns and a small collection of depression glass. I can't bring myself to make tea in it because I would have to disturb the cryptic handwritten note that she kept in the pot and (I assume) forgot to remove before she gave it to me.