Thursday, February 17, 2011

Back before the pan cooled...

I'm gonna have to quit reading Karen's blogs.  She's always up to something she couldn't have done when she was living over here on Anderson Street, in the city of Salisbury - exciting stuff, like delivering baby goats, making goat cheese or her own maple syrup collected from her own sugar maples, rendering lard, building goat pens or chicken houses in her own front yard, kayaking on her own river right across the street. And then there's those great pictures of the beautiful countryside - taken from her own bedroom window.

I could go on and on, but what's the use. I'm a city girl!  True, my head turns easily when I read her blog, or worse yet, when I visit her for a couple of days. I come away "wowed", wishing I could try a couple of those things myself. I've told Bob, not once, but several times now that I want to move to the country - but then yesterday put it all back in perspective for me.

I was doing something I don't do frequently, since Bob and I usually only average about one night a week at home together (and even that's not a given) - I was cooking dinner, or rather, I was starting dinner. I'm not a great cook, but I have been trying some new recipes lately. (Heck, I ought to find something I'm good at.)

Anyway, I had been to the grocery store and bought all the ingredients. As usual, my grocery list was back home on the kitchen counter, but still, I ended up doing a pretty good job remembering everything for "Double-Crust Chicken Pot Pie" done "Mama's Way" from Southern Living's February issue. I already had some of the ingredients in my cupboard.

I had just sauteed the leeks in 1/2 cup of melted butter, sprinkled in the 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and was now ready to whisk in the can of chicken broth of which I thought I had at least 10 cans. But no! Not a one! The cupboard was bare.


So I turned off the burner, jumped in my car, walked into Food Lion 4 minutes later, was back in my car in less than 4, and back home pouring in the chicken broth, all in roughly about 12 minutes! I had to smile to myself as I sipped my wine and "whisked constantly." 

There are just some things I love about city-living! Besides, I wouldn't last a week doing a quarter of the things Karen does.

Ahhh! I guess I'll just have to keep reading her blogs and living vicariously through them! I'm probably better at dreaming about country living than actually living it.

4 comments:

  1. You're not going to believe this. I baked that same double crust chicken pot pie. It was my friend's 50th birthday and I had just gotten that issue of Southern Living so I thought I'd bake that for her birthday dinner. Just so you know, I had no idea where in the grocery store you would find puff pastry.

    It was delicious wasn't it?

    I still think you should move here to the country. I could turn you into a country girl real fast. I'd love to have you here.

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  2. What do you do though, when you're in the middle of a recipe and there's no chicken broth in the pantry?

    Tonight I'm doing the "Your way" chicken pot pie - it's much easier!

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  3. Oh Karen, I forgot to say - I'd come there too, if Bob would. But talk about city!!!

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  4. Well, I could tell you I go out and kill a chicken and make my broth but that wouldn't be true. We just keep enough stuff in our pantry that we think we need or if we don't have it we don't make it till next time we run to the store.

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