Chicken pot pie is one of those simple, wholesome foods that I remember from my childhood. Like may of my generation, I thought all pot pies came in boxes that were plucked ripe off the vine in the valley of the jovial chartreuse midget. (Or something like that.) They were heated, served and devoured, usually two or three to a person and with gusto on cold, damp San Francisco Bay Area weekends when the fog rolled in over the vineyards and the wind touched little cheeks with fingers of ice.
They were heaven. We didn’t care that they came from a package, just that it meant laughter and a warm belly after venturing out in the chill. (Today the temperatures we called cold in the Sonoma valley seem kind of foolish, but as children that had never known a truly cold climate, 30 degrees was freezing!) My mother, my sister and I would stand in the kitchen, soaking up the warmth of the oven and a cup of cocoa (coffee in my mother’s case), just waiting for the golden brown treasures to be done. We’d all sit together and talk about whatever was on our respective minds at the time and share that most precious of bonds, Family.
I call these the cheater’s version of a chicken pot pie simply because the only real effort in making them was reheating some leftovers and finding a suitable pastry to cover a few of my large ramekins, but I think that my mother would have agreed that they were some of the best we’d ever eaten, if she could be her to share them with my family and I today.
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