Team Pie

My niece Helen turned eight recently. She's hands-down the most appreciative diner who passes through my door nowadays. Not only does she effusively vocalize her appreciation for food, she backs it up by taking seconds and cleaning her plate. What's more, she will specifically request certain dishes in advance, which to me is the ultimate proof that Helen is not just being polite (unless she's a gastro-masochist of some sort and likes to intentionally subject herself to food she dislikes in order to boost the cook's self-esteem). When her mom asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner, Helen's chosen menu featured chicken and dumplings followed by peach pie - both dishes I feed her family regularly. I go way back with chicken and dumplings. My mom used to make a pot of it on top of our wood-burning stove during the many epic wintertime power outages of my Connecticut childhood and deliver it to one of our elderly neighbors. I've found a recipe I like and serve it to my sister's family because it's one of the few things in my repertoire that reliably serves ten. The dumplings are highly coveted, and I've considered making this dinner in a wider, flatter pan to create more liquid surface area, thus accommodating a greater number of dumplings.

What you see above is a sequential photo-tableau of the dinner - the pot of chicken and dumplings, served at the table right off of the stove and usually as hot as magma. Afterwards, my niece Eileen lit candles on the pie (frozen back in August when the peaches were at their sweetest and most delectable) and I played the "Happy Birthday" song on my ukulele. You see Helen in the next-to final picture, radiant in all her rosy-cheeked ginger-haired splendor, preparing to tuck into peach pie in November. The pie itself retained its shape famously, not slumping into the hole created by removal of the first piece the way fruit pies do so often and so frustratingly. We all went home stuffed with sugar and carbohydrates and pleased with Helen's choice of a home-cooked meal over a pizza at some establishment that also features a video arcade. What can I say? The kid has good taste.