Cheeeyucken potpie

In college, I had a stellar roommate. We were very lucky to have been assigned to live with each other, and we shared a similar sense of humor along with our hippie tapestries, G. Love CDs, and mini-fridge (in which I always kept a log of raw cookie dough and a spoon...shudder).

R. was great at impersonations. My all-time favorite was her version of some twangy-voiced, simpering aunt of hers back in Pennsylvania. The details are fuzzy now, but I believe she was immortalized for repeatedly pestering R. during family holidays with the unforgettable, "Dontcha want some cheeeeyucken and pee-yummpkin pee-ayee?" All R. had to do was mutter "peee-ayee" under her breath and I'd lose it.

It's been a long time, but I still have trouble saying the words "chicken" and "pumpkin pie" like a normal human. When I decided to make chicken potpie last week, you can bet I had to suppress a snort or two before embarking.

I hadn't made one of these in a long time. I turned to Julia Child, of course. I knew without even looking that Cooking at Home would contain a chicken potpie recipe, and that it would be exactly what I wanted: creamy chunks of chicken with a smattering of veg underneath a crispy brown crust. Julia knew a good thing.

To complement the potpie, I threw some extremely low-quality frozen peas on the table (although I don't exactly know if high-quality ones even exist...). For some odd reason, Randy decided that he would enjoy a nice frosty glass of milk with his meal that night. I suspect that it was perhaps the second time ever that a glass of milk had been drunk in our house (and that first glass was, I'm sure, an accompaniment to warm cookies).

All of sudden we realized that dinner was starting to resemble something from The Gallery of Regrettable Food. But it tasted great, cheap peas and retro milk aside.

P.S. If you've got a potpie itch that must be scratched, you might want to check out this book, newly released from Chronicle Books.

Dear Slow Food Readers...

Hello there. If you've found my blog through the listing on the Slow Food USA newsletter, welcome! You might want to check out my post about a Slow Food event I attended last summer, where we sampled the most amazing peaches I've ever tasted at Andy's Orchard in Morgan Hill, CA.

Thanks for visiting!

-Cindy

Sara's grandma's simple cake

Many years ago, a good friend passed along another friend's grandmother's cake recipe to me. I was in desperate need of a dessert that would let me make use of a generous gift of Italian plums. These plums had been busily overwhelming a coworker's backyard in Seattle, and one fall day she dropped an ugly plastic bag full of them unceremoniously on my desk with visible relief in her eyes. (Zucchini-growers will empathize, I'm sure...).

I am ashamed to admit that I rarely return to a recipe--there are just so many dishes out there in the world that demand to be tried!--but something about the cake's old-fashioned simplicity appealed to me, and it managed to make the leap into my spiral-bound, greatest-hits recipe notebook for good.

I recently returned to this cake, and was once again charmed by its strong Midwestern values and freshly-scrubbed appearance. Well, you know what I mean. It's honest. And versatile. And, yes, easy.

This recipe pops up all over the place in various guises, as it should. The version I received suggests a layer of halved plums atop the batter, but I have also made it successfully with thinly sliced Bartlett pears. You could top it with strawberries, or caramelized apples, or sprinkle in some nutmeg, or candied ginger, or dried cranberries, or swirl in a spoonful of jam...in other words, I doubt you can go wrong here. And adding a nice dollop of creme fraiche or whipped cream before serving never hurt anybody.

Sara's Grandmother's Plum Cake

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup flour (I have used cake flour with great results)
1 tsp. baking powder
Pinch salt
Enough plums to cover top of cake, halved and pitted (perhaps 8-12, depending on size)

Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
lemon juice

Equipment:
1 8-inch springform pan, lightly greased

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream sugar with butter. Add eggs and mix. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined.

Spoon batter into 8-inch springform pan.

Arrange plum halves in a single layer on top of the batter so the top is nicely covered.

Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top of everything and drizzle with lemon juice.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until done (do the toothpick maneuver).

Remove from oven and allow to cool so that it doesn't collapse when you pop the springform.

Enjoy!

It's just the last coupla days my mind has been, not good.

I haven't been firing on all cylinders lately. To wit:

Friday night, at a fondue restaurant in Lake Tahoe
Me (boozily): "Now wait, how long did the waitress tell us to cook the beef cubes in the oil?"
Alison: "45 seconds."
Me: "And the bacon-wrapped dates?"
Alison: "10 seconds."
Me: "What about the bread? How long do we have to cook it in the cheese?"
Alison: "Umm..."

(Awkward pause.)

Me: "Oh. Right."


Sunday night
Me: "This is DISGUSTING. How can anybody eat this??"
Randy: "What did you expect? It's a microwave macaroni and soy cheese frozen dinner, for God's sake."
Me: "Good point."