chicken pot pies

I have just spent the last hour making a full-on chicken pot pie. Why? Because I foolishly decided to teach a pastry class in two days, and because I think, my picture was in the paper last month in an article about cooking classes, all my classes have sold. Great. And not great, because it is the end of the term and the next night I have a charity dinner for 20.

However, despite it being the end of May, Oregon has decided to ignore the warm Pacific currents and it has been raining torrents. I was at a wine tasting yesterday outside besides a choppy lake trying to enjoy the tastings. The lake was supposed to be sparkling and our conversation likewise, but we sipped and tried our best.

So, today, I am reviewing the recipe and trying it out before cooking for a crowd. I have a small small kitchen, and stack things upon all available surfaces. I pre poached the chicken as the wind came up outside. I cut the lovely spring veg, small carrots, baby green beans, grass like asparagus into diagonal same length pieces as the rain began. And, as the smoke alarm went off AGAIN I roasted the red pepper for lovely geramium colored dice. I mumble to myself, imagine teaching it to a group. I imagine the kitchen at the store and what pans I need. I sip some wine from yesterday.

After I assembled the veg and held them as I made the bechamel, I chilled the dough. It sat in my fridge patiently chilling like the weather outside. The phone rang and I took a break...and another sip of wine.

My brother...great news, nice visit, and a chat as I stood looking outside at the retreating rain and mist, considering if I remembered how to open the damper and make a fire.

Back to the chicken pot pie.

I rolled out the dough on my thirty year old tupperware pastry sheet with concentric circles for pie sizes printed on it. I have dragged this beat up tool around for all these years, and I think I need a new one. But it, like so many of my kitchen things has memories no one knows and ever will, but while I have it they live on each time I put my rolling pin to the dough. This is the sheet my daughter made her first tarte tatin. It is the one I cooled cookies on for years.

Why chicken pot pie? This sure was not any kind of chicken pot pie I knew or remembered and despite their paltry filling today I still liked what I remembered of them! Hence the importance of memory over substance because they are still awful now. When the three of us, my two brothers and I were younger, pot pies indicated: Mom And Dad Are Going Out. If not pot pies, then fish sticks also meant the baby sitter was coming over.

We loved pot pies, little saucers with a crust and the glint of crimped aluminum around the outside. I liked the bouncy over-done carrots, the few peas and some cubes of chicken, and the copius gravy. There was a satisfying aroma when we broke the top with our forks. The box promised a luscious picture, and to a six year old, it delivered.

However, in my first marriage, I tried to replicate the pies, and even bought the little pie pans to make my own. I tried, and failed at the bechamel, and so pumped it up with lots of Worscheshire sauce in the congealed gravy. I had made eight of them, happily regressing in the kitchen. Not successful, but not wanting to throw them away, I ate them all week for lunch.

I left those same pans behind last year in my last pantry. Today, I actually borrowed a large porcelain pie pan from my second husband, in fact it was a wedding present to us. I brought it home and now it sits in the oven, a lovely crust piled over a delectable mix with just the right amount of bechamel over perfect vegetables and poached chicken. Or so I hope.

No babysitters, no Mom's night out, the daughter is in college and the dog kids are at Dad's. I hope it tastes good; I have called several people to share it with, but no one is home this soggy, soggy Memorial weekend. The rain has now stopped and as it grows darker I see some sunlight in the city below.

In a way, this is my memorial to all the baby sitters, our nights while Mom and Dad were out being grown ups, and to my two marriages. I have promised to share a piece with the last husband, who knows when I may be driven to make a pie again? Oh yeah, there IS still the class in two days.

Tomorrow, I practice the pastry for and make an apple pie. To be continued.

Victoria's Secret is out

Ok, there has been a theme with some of my postings, that of lingerie. This has nothing to do with food, unless you consider what to wear for certain dinners.

There is mom lingerie, dating lingerie, virginal, bridal, and trainer.

For several years it seemed that it didn't matter what in the hell I wore, it would not make any positive difference, as interests were lateral. However, there is a personal side, and a self awareness side that all women understand.

We put ourselves, especially if mothers, last. My daughter recognized this, and often, as she grew older, would say, "treat yourself Mom." But I was carrying the house, would write most of the food checks, and there was Costco with the pack of mom-ness underwear. What the hell, worked for me, 'cause who was looking? Wrong attitude, and I get that now. She however, is a forthright young woman whose come home from college luggage last year was stuffed Vicky's bags.

When I first got into lingerie, as every teenage girl does, it was a break FROM mom. I didn't know what my mom wore; I wanted my own style, from shampoo, (no Prell thank you), to my first cologne, (Chanel 59) and then lingerie. We lived in Germany. I could shop in the base, with all the made in America white stuff, or, I could saunter downtown to Herties, the local department store and shop with my girlfriends.

This was the era of beginning panty hose, with wierd cuts that looked like stockings and garter belts all in one, with bra slips, and tiny tiny bottoms. German is a very pragmatic and descriptive language. Bustenhalters, "bust-holders" were bras, abbreviated to b-h, or "bey-hah. We wanted bey-has.

A stolid shopwoman, of Wagnerian size looked at us, gangly junior-sized American women and sniffed. "Null," she intoned. The bras were piled into large waist high bins, all colors and mechanations. Some were leopard, others red and see through, many virginal lace, cross strap, strapless, add-a strap, etc. They were grouped very pragmaatically, like the language, into four sizes; 1-eins, 2-zewi, 3-drei, and 4-fier. Larger sizes, awe-inspiring 5, 6, or the 00mm-pah-pah 7 were in the Wagner section. We cowered, we were not large enough for these bra bins, we were , Null, zero. We crept away to the junior, and even child section for our bras. I loved my bra slip, with mini skirts only 9-10 inches long, a bra slip was perfect; it lifted when you reached up, and never showed the slip! What else we may have showed was another issue.

Later in college, no bras. Bandaids were the issue, when shopping in the frozen food section. I remember sleeping on campus away from home and realizing I had no bra the next day. I was terrified, and walked like Quasimoto the rest of the day, shoulders hunched. I got over it, and wore halters, no bra, backless, and long bell bottoms I embroidered. My dad had a fit and said not daughter of his was wearing that, but I did. so there.

Later on, the cascade of bras continued, shopping in London, with all sorts of exotic styles for fun. What color to wear under what. Front, back, closure, pull on...pull off! It was the late 60's and who needed them?

Motherhood, maternity bras, enough said. Ditched them as soon as I could, and back to fancy stuff for dating. Single mom, single lingerie.

In India, my friend's houseboy ironed her bras, and every week after laundry they were lined up like little Frederick's of Hollywood pyramids, folded into triangles and IRONED. I don't know what bothered me more, that someone saw the lingerie, or that this man ironed them. Shoppping in the market, a chain link fence was festooned with bras, all lurid colors. "Russian bras!" the man said, and I wasn't sure if it was because of their impressive peasant size, or where they were made.

My bra quest continued. Recently in Turkey, I got a kick out of the contrast between publidc and private, all in public. One store had wedding dresses, confections with yards of tuille. And also, the conservative wedding outfit for the traditional, with headscarf and full- on covered jacket. Across the street was the bra shop. Points, crennelations, pyramids, all facing east, the bras enticed and mocked the store across the street. For good measure, some of the mannequins were even of statuesque nature so all would see themselves in the window.

Which brings me to Vicky's. I know it is a cunning marketing plan, to call this Victoria's. THis implies virginal, Victorian, under-the-sheets enthusiasm topped with virginal faux-reluctance. "For that special occasion, " intoned a woman showing me samples, " these are for every day. " WHAT special occasion, the nuptials, the tryst, the post maternity? What in the hell were they marketing?

Front of the house: dessert. Confectionary, fluff, lace, tuille, leopard, see through, and bondage. Back of the house: main course: every day, cotton, swimsuit, 24/7 wearing, fatigue, and camoflauge. And, no one was a 4, 5,6, or 7. I asked to see several types, "We don't usually have your size on display, but they are below." I am a 38 for God's sake, not a 60. Nope, like size 6 shoes on display, only the teeny ones with lots of push up were on the impossibly thin manequins, with pelvic bones that would cut butter. The women selling things wear formal black suits and get discounts apparently, tanning. They were lovely. I shopped, I took in trays of samples from the 38 drawer, and spent my gift certificate. It was great. No more "null" , or Russian bras, " or dance of the seven veils. It is truly interesting though how women have been convinced to buy from this place named after one of the most repressed Victorians...but she had 12 kids. Think about it.