Heather's Pot Pies

When I visited my daughter, Annie, in New Zealand during late 2003, she kept telling me I needed to try one of their pot pies. With every encouragement, I always noticed a grin on her face. Each day while traveling the North Island, we'd load up a box in the back seat of our rental car with munchies.

Annie liked her peanuts, apples and diet Pepsi's. She also introduced me to Anzac cookies, among others. Each afternoon, bites from the chocolate bars chased with a sip of with "long black" coffee delighted my tastebuds as I remained continually enchanted with the New Zealand countryside.

We often planned stops at sidewalk bakeries. Making a decision of what to select among the wide assortment of fresh-baked pastries was difficult. Each evening we'd eat a real meal, often at an Irish pub, a couple of times at my penpal's home in Taupo.

Days passed. I still hadn't tried a pot pie. Annie said I could find them anywhere because the Kiwi's love their pot pies, kinda like some men drivers and their grease-infused roadside chicken. So, with just a day or two left, I decided to take the plunge and purchased my pie at a convenience store near Hamilton.

After two bites, the pot pie was deposited into a plastic sack in the back seat and later dumped into a garbage container. It was like biting into a canvas bag of ornamental bark. The ingredients within were indiscernible. The flavor did not exist.

All this said, when Heather Evans told me that she and her mother had bought the Pie Hut on Fifth Avenue across from the IGA----and that they made chicken pot pies every afternoon by 4, I cringed, thinking of that Kiwi experience.

But Heather was a good graphic arts student in my class during the mid-'90s. She also cooked at Schweitzer. Surely her pot pies would pass the my rigid taste test.

I bought one on Tuesday, along with some chocolate pecan and dutch apple pieces for dessert. Heather has completely erased my pot-pie prejudice. Flaky, light pastry, clean, white chunks of chicken accompanied by tasty peas, carrots and potatoes floating in melt-in-your-mouth gravy.

Every last bite went into a Love stomach---not the garbage. She has found the formula for folks, including our family, to want to come back for more.

I'm sure any visiting Kiwis would agree.