Yesterday as I was making a chicken pie for supper, the time went by more than usually fast - because my mind was occupied thinking about the people who made a contribution to that pie. Took me on quite a journey...
It started with blending the pastry in a mixing bowl given to me in Zimbabwe - where I went to set up home with the contents of a three ft by two ft trunk... hence my first flat was extremely bare... A good friend from All Nations Christian College was working with her parents and siblings in Zimbabwe, running a lovely orphanage in a farming area outside Harare. Through Cheryl, I got to know her family, and her sister Gerrilyn was getting married to a pastor called Winston, so as she was starting over, she gave me some of her cooking equipment including these bowls, two floor rugs, some curtains and a sofa set. She basically saved me from living on a bare wooden floor! Although the sofa set got left behind in Zimbabwe, everything else is still in my possession, and I use those mixing bowls virtually every day, fifteen years later, and think of Gerrilyn every time. She and her husband now pastor a church in the US.
Rolled out the pastry on a glass board given to us for Christmas once by fellow-Uganda missionary Thom Froese, picked out for us at Game in Kampala... very handy and also used often... and I also appreciate Thom every time I look at the sepia photos of Paris on them...
Cooking the filling, I was thinking about Robyn, who gave me the recipe and promised me that her whole family even both daughters love this pie and eat every scrap... Robyn was a friend I made through the children's school, Ambrosoli, in Kampala - she is South African, we used to talk about books together a lot, and she then went and immigrated to Tasmania - really! - as her husband is a forester and works there now. We keep in touch a little bit, and it's true, I do love her pie.
Once the pie was out and looking pretty good, I must say (!), I couldn't help thinking about Florence, our helper in Uganda... this was one of the recipes I taught her to make, and, she used to make it perfectly every time. It was such a blessing and so blissful, to say to Florence in the morning, "Could you make us one of those chicken pies today?" - and to get home in the afternoon to find it ready and waiting for supper... Heavenly. I think of Florence almost every day - I don't miss her help as much as I did in the beginning, but, some days I would almost pay for her ticket just to have her here with her steady, unflappable, gently smiling manner, ready to do anything, at her own pace, but, she would get it done. I loved Florence! She would sympathise with me when I was flustered, tell me I needed a rest if I looked tired, tell me things were not my fault, tell me I had been working hard, agree with me that life is difficult, tell me my children were so good, and basically, she was on my side at every point.
So my mind travelled as I cooked, from Zimbabwe to the US to Uganda to Tasmania and back to Uganda again. And, the pie was pretty good. I can pass on the recipe to anyone who wants it - it is easy I promise!
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