There's Freedom in Chicken Pot Pie
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In honor of Independence Day. An excerpt from Roy's (now finished) work in progress...
by Roy Edwards
As far back as I can remember, my parents both were at the home. My father worked as a cloud storage salesman servicing the Federal Government and the Department of Defense. My brothers both went on to become salesmen, likely because of my father's profession and him always being around. For any boy your dad is a superhero, someone you want to be just like. Either subconsciously or not, you end up being just like your parents. Maybe this is why I fell into the technology field.
My mother was a former saleswoman, who after meeting my father, retired and became a full-time mom. Some might call her a “housewife” or “stay at home mom”, but anyone who has ever had one knows that they’re basically entrepreneurs of the home. In fact, when people ask how my brother and I both ended up becoming entrepreneurs, I often point to my mom first.
My Mom kept everything in order, juggled everything from practices, to schooling, to PTA meetings, to the everyday household activities. Being a parent now, I understand how challenging it is to keep everyone in order, and still get dinner on the table. I often am in awe of my wife in how she is able to keep things in order, there must be some super power that women have where they are able to keep things straight and together.
When my wife and I first started dating we often shared information about our upbringing and our favorite foods. It’s a normal series of conversation when you first start dating someone, and I bet there are one to two meals that stand out in your mind around things that you constantly ate.
For me, that was chicken pot pie.
It was a recipe that was passed down from my grandmother and was one that my mother taught me as I went off to college. “Quick and easy,” she used to say, and while it might not have been the healthiest dinner, it certainly checked all the boxes of vegetables, carbs, and protein, and, most importantly, everyone at the table would eat it. The dish included peas, carrots, potatoes, chopped up chicken, cream of chicken soup straight from the can, and then biscuits from that pop can laid out on top. Throw it in the oven for a time and boom, dinner is served.
I loved this meal, and it was one we ate regularly. I would say that Chicken Pot Pie was served in our house weekly, and no one complained. The dish was a staple and our friends who would be at the house for dinner time always enjoyed it as well. There was always plenty of food to go around and there were always leftovers ready to re-heat for the next day's lunch.
The recipe was shared with neighbors, friends, and within cookbooks that were published within our communities. While it wasn’t the only meal that my mom cooked that made its way into cookbooks or that was a favorite among my friends, it was certainly the one that I look back on as an adult and enjoyed more than most. Maybe that’s because I learned quickly how to make it myself.
As I went off to college, I remember going to the grocery store and picking up a can of cream of chicken, a bag of vegetables, some chicken, and a roll of biscuits and impressing roommates and friends. This simple and efficient recipe helped me to not eat peanut butter and jelly, or Ramen noodles every day, and at the same time, allowed me to show something off and trick my college friends into believing that I could actually cook.
Whether on a college budget or on an expanded budget as an adult, I now see the value of this recipe from a whole new perspective. The brainpower needed to produce the meal is relatively limited. Let’s face it, if 18-year-old Roy in a college apartment can whip it up and not burn anything, it must be simple and easy. I’ve found that the creation of this meal as a staple was a way to get everyone to the table and have discussions as a family – even when there were a million things going on.
The most important things about dinner itself is not always the meal. In fact, as an adult I’ve come to realize that it really doesn’t have anything to do with the food on the table and more to do with those around it. Working in quick recipes that are built into the week and systematically carried out ensured that food got to the table with the least amount of effort and made sure that the members around the table could have conversation, share stories, and bond. This time together, after all, is the real purpose of family dinners. Not to awe over the French cuisine and experience of the dish put in front of those at the table, but the conversations being had with those sitting around it.
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I didn’t realize it then, but the very ability to have a meal together as a family, was freedom.
The dinner table is so special, important, and ingrained in our culture as Americans that we take it for granted.
A study conducted by the?Family Dinner Project, a nonprofit organization focused on the impacts dinner table time has on the family and country, indicated that approximately?88% of Americans?eat dinner with their family?every night or a few times a week.?While that seems like a rather high percentage, the key metric in the study is “or a few times a week”. The frequency in family dinners has changed over time, so much so that we now no longer expect a family to eat together every night, and have now gone as far to stop asking families if they do it. The Family Dinner Project noted that the number of family dinners has declined by 33% and attributed this to busy schedules, prepared food, managing picky eaters, and work.
The study shows that family dinners have a significant impact on the family members, including the emotional health of their children and their wellbeing, the physical health of the family members, and, of course, connection within the family nucleus. The connection of sharing a meal deepens the family connection and bond, even when nothing is said. Studies show that even sitting in quiet together brings families closer rather than not sitting together at all.
I get it; work is busy. You have busy schedules that include sports, activities, play dates, events, community outings, date nights; the list goes on. Maybe your kids are older now and want to be out of the house. While all of those are likely valid, they are still excuses. Excuses that our society of two family incomes, the 9-5 grind, and the old-fashioned commute have propped up for the American people to chew on. It’s okay if you’re not home for dinner, because you’re providing for your family. It’s okay if you never make a baseball game because those league fees won’t pay themselves. It’s okay if you are late to the date with your significant oter, because the bill won’t pay itself. Right?
At some point we have to start looking at work, systems, processes, and the way things are done in a new way. Technology is evolving to the point where an office isn’t a necessity. We can communicate via phone and video calls with anyone in the world, yet we still believe that business has to be done in a cubicle?
Using the same ideas that my mother used to get dinner on the table every night, you can build a business that gets you at the table. Through charting the course, we are going to dive into the systems and processes that the big organizations of the world use, dissect them, and see how we can implement them into your businesses or lives. We have a responsibility to our children – to the next generation – to build a system that keeps the family nucleus together. The world is desperate for a change, a change we got a little taste of after the pandemic of 2020. It’s time to implement these freedoms from cubicles for families, for your co-workers, and for yourself. The freedom from the cubicle, freedom from traffic, freedom to live their lives, or quite simply the freedom to make it to the dinner table every night. It may sound overdramatic, but there’s freedom in chicken pot pie.
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The infamous Recipe
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray casserole dish 13 x 9. In a bowl, mix milk, cream of chicken soup, salt, pepper, and ground thyme together until smooth. Then add boiled chicken, potatoes, carrots and (peas it you like) to soup mixture. Pour into a greased casserole dish. Bake for 15 minutes. Should begin to have small bubbles on edge of mixture. Once small bubbles start, add cut biscuit pieces on top and bake an additional 15 minutes or until biscuits are golden. You will want to check around 13 minutes as you do not want to over bake biscuits.
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Happy Family Dinner & Happy 4th of July!!