Originally posted 13 December 2016.
I had chicken pox around age 5. I remember being home for several days and my Momma would prepare chicken pot pies for my lunch. I called them chicken pox pies for the longest time!
Ever since then, whenever I have been sick, my go to comfort food has been a chicken pot pie. Forget the flakey, huge concoction Colonel Sanders makes or Marie Callender’s almost homemade delicacy … I am a Banquet double crust chicken pot pie kinda girl.
Momma had unique cooking skills. She fed the family three meals a day. She made good solid food and she grew most of our vegetables and fruits. She canned and froze foods for use throughout the winter.
She also burnt toast. She burnt toast just about every morning. Momma did not like toaster toast. She liked buttered toast from the oven. She wanted her butter on the bread before it was toasted, not afterwards.
I made my bed most mornings listening to her scrape the every-so-slightly burnt edges from the toast. It is actually a very fond memory.
Thanks to the advances in pre-treating chemo-related nausea, I have yet to worship the porcelain altar. My nausea has been wave after wave of something like morning sickness, more so in rounds 4, 5, and 6.
There are always several Banquet pot pies in our freezer. I have asked Richard to make them for me when I have been sick. I ask that he makes them just like Momma’s … slightly over done on the crusts … not all the way burnt needing a good scraping … just very buttered and overdone. He can replicate Momma’s unique cooking skills very well. I am sure for a chef quality cook like Richard, he finds this a little strange but he does it for me.
He made a Banquet pot pit Saturday for me and it hit the spot!
Leaders … what kind of pot pie are you? I believe it is OK to be a little crusty on the edges as long as it is a good kind of crusty … the behavior (the DO) that makes for fond memories and not a harsh climate.
Leaders … think about the memories your leaders made for you. Replicate memories for you followers.
-VhS