My Kingdom for a School Day
The Friday Newsletter has a hearty meal, a cozy cocktail, some experimental music, and no hope of leaving this house any time soon.
Please.
Please let this winter break end.
It is, as of your reading this, January 10th, 2025. As I write this, my children have not been in school since December 20th, 2024. If my math is correct, that means it has been an entire year since they were last in a classroom.
(A month ago, the kids might’ve been able to correct me on that. Not now, though!)
They were supposed to go back after the holiday break this Monday, but a significant winter storm blew through Louisville starting Sunday afternoon, blanketing the city in snow and ice and shuttering schools for an entire additional week. I’m not faulting the schools, mind you—there’s really no way we could’ve had school this week. The city’s cleanup has been respectable, considering we’ve received our average annual snowfall in less than a week, but there are plenty of impassable sidewalks and sidestreets left.
And so here we find ourselves, in the winter break that will never end.
It hasn’t been all bad, of course—we’ve gotten some great sledding in, and we’re getting great value out of the winter coats and snow pants we bought for them in advance of the season.
But my god, these kids need structure. They need enrichment. They need someone to talk to other than my wife and I. Fortunately, five days is plenty of time to get the bus routes clear, and we should probably be fine going forward. Unless it snows again, of course. Now, to take a big sip of hot cocoa and read today’s forecast—
[spits cocoa, which freezes in mid-air]
Friends, it’s Friday again at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
We might be stuck in a Groundhog Day-like scenario here, but I promise you that I will not take it as an opportunity to grow as a person. Instead, I’m going to do the same thing I do every Friday—offer up a great slate of things for your weekend to come.
Today, I’m gearing that to my current snowbound condition, with a hearty heirloom meal, a charmingly-cozy cocktail, some interesting new music, movie recs, and more!
Grab a sled, friends. It’s all downhill from here.
When you’re here, you’re family
I am a big sucker for an heirloom family recipe.
If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you’ve surely heard me prattle on about some of my most-cherished family recipes—Pastitsio firmly at the top of the list, but also recipes like my Great-Grandpa Moore’s ‘Hot Sauce’ and Chestnut Burrs.
These aren’t fancy dishes, mind you, but they’re incredible comfort food, and I hold closely to the idea of passing them from one generation to the next.
I also love hearing about your family recipes, and I’ve got one of those to share today.
It was way back in February 2020 when I first exchanged emails with longtime reader Matt Pelletier about his grandmother’s recipe for C’est Pot—an Acadian chicken-and-dumplings dish traditionally served with buckwheat pancakes called ployes.
Matt sent me the recipe then, and I planned it to make soon thereafter, but then life intervened. (I can’t imagine how or why I got distracted shortly after February 2020.) He reminded me of it in the comments of a more-recent post where I talked (as I’m doing now) about the importance of preserving those recipes:
Just before the hellscape that is 2020 set in, the Great State of Maine was preparing for its bicentennial and some noble folks thought it would be a great idea to create a statewide community cookbook that drew from all 16 counties in the Pine Tree State.
My grandparents (on my dad’s side) grew up in Aroostook County which is waaaaay at the top of the state (specifically Fort Kent and Eagle Lake), but after WWII grandma and grandpa moved to Connecticut which had a large French Canadian population and thankfully, grandma kept her cooking roots. Years later, growing up in Southern Maine we’d make the trip to CT every month or so - we’d get to their house just around dinner time and there’d be a platter on the table waiting for us: C’est Pot - an Acadian chicken and dumpling meal with a stack of ployes (a savory buckwheat crepe/pancake that was instrumental in sopping up the sauce left behind). This meal was a favorite of the lumber camps grandpa worked in prior to the war and it was clear why. It suck with you and kept you full for most of the day.
Fast forward to 2019: we’re mourning the passing of Grandma and I see the call for recipes to the community cookbook. I submit the recipes and give a background about them and now when meal is served, it’s like a warm embrace from them.
The recipe is selected for the book and now it sits on page 143 of the Maine Community Cookbook: Volume 1.
This reminder was cause enough for me to procure the few pantry ingredients I didn’t have, and our once-in-a-decade winter storm this past weekend was the perfect excuse to make such a warm, hearty dish. I thank Matt for sharing it with me, and for giving his blessing to share it with all of you here.
C’est Pot (Grandma Pelletier’s chicken and dumplings)
Chicken Thighs, legs, bone in (one or two pieces per person)
1 large or 2 med onions, sliced
Potatoes, 1 per person, peeled and quartered
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp. Summer Savory (or more)
Gravy Master Seasoning
Grease the sides and bottom of a Dutch Oven.
Place ½ of the cut chicken pieces on bottom of Dutch oven. Layer with ½ of the cut onions and potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle liberally with Summer Savory.
Make a simple biscuit dough. For every cup of flour, add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Add milk to make a thick biscuit dough. Mix lightly, do not over mix or the biscuits will be hard. (Recommend 2 cups of flour to start.) Drop dollops of the dough onto the other ingredients in the Dutch oven.
Add another layer of all ingredients, finishing with the last layer of biscuit dough.
Add enough water, seasoned with Gravy Master, to just cover the contents of the pot.
Place covered in a 350˚ oven for at least 2 hours. Check the doneness of the potatoes to see when it is ready. Leave the cover off for the last 15 minutes for added browning.
For reduced calories, remove the skin of the chicken when preparing.
If you wish, carrots and celery may be added to taste. Add these at the beginning with the potato and onion.
Note: Summer Savory is not often found in supermarkets, but can be found in some specialty shops or Natural Food Stores. If you can’t find it, substitute with Savory.
Notes on my execution: I did include the carrots and celery as permitted, and I also used chicken broth in lieu of water because I had broth to use and figured it couldn’t hurt. (It didn’t.) Also, I found Gravy Master online.
The cooking process made the kitchen smell fantastic, and the end result hit the spot incredibly hard after an afternoon of sledding with the kids. It might’ve taken me five years to finally get around to making it, but it was worth the wait.
Respecting tradition, I did make a stack of ployes, following the instructions on the bag of ployes mix I purchased online. I’ll confess that mine weren’t nearly as photogenic as the example picture Matt sent me, though, so I’ll share his instead:
All in all, a fun venture and a supremely-satisfying meal.
Now that we’re warm, let’s cozy up in a cocktail
With a meal as rich and hearty as that one, it’s going to take a strong effort for a cocktail to match its Coziness Quotient. (Technical term.)
Thankfully, I’ve got just the thing.