“I cannot make enough chicken pot pies. Regulars call on Tuesday mornings to reserve a pie, forcing me to erase them from the Tuesday specials board before we open for lunch. I keep doubling the number I make, but the demand grows to meet the expanded supply. I’m about to have a line out the door waiting for pot pies.”–Rebecca Rather, The Pastry Queen

I won’t lie. Usually when Jeff asks for chicken pot pie, I pick up a Marie Callender’s from the grocery freezer for him and make something lighter for myself. I love chicken pot pie, but most just sit in your belly, playing Solitaire and watching their stories.

Then I saw a photo of Rebecca Rather’s All-Sold-Out Chicken Pot Pie in her first cookbook, “The Pastry Queen.” Actually, it was a pic of two rows of individual pies, with beautifully misshapen golden crusts.

I NEEDED one. So, out came the pans. And the bowls. And the rolling pin. It was time to get old-school.

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I love making breakfast.

It should make me curl into the fetal position and rock myself, since my mom was Queen of the Rude Awakening. She would wake me up by flickering the bedroom light and singing at the top of her lungs: “Good mornin’, good mornin’! We’ve talked the whole night through, good mornin’, good mornin’ to you-hoo-hoo-hoo-HOOOOOOO!”

Oh, the agony of being an angsty teen and waking up to Debbie Reynolds every morning. Pass the flannel and the black eyeliner!

I wasn’t a morning person until I switched careers and started working at a German bakery. I had to be there, bright-eyed and ready to strudel, at 3:45 a.m. It was very weird to pass the late-night/early-morning party people on the road and realize you were living in their tomorrow, but I liked the solitude of unlocking the bakery door and getting the day started. I’d make a variety of croissants, coffee cakes and breakfast pastries every morning. Cinnamon rolls on the weekends. I’d always set one aside for Jeff, who would drive to my hometown to see me on the weekends. A little bribery never hurt.

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When we were kids, the summer didn’t end without me and my sister spending an afternoon watching some terrible movie or marathon. The Legend of Billie Jean. Meatballs. Fifteen and Pregnant. An all-day Facts of Life marathon. Something we could talk through. And snack through. One particularly inspired afternoon, Mom made us eggrolls to peck while we watched The Birds.

Now that summer is winding down, I find myself gravitating toward bad movies. Really bad movies. Movies starring people like Nicolas Cage. One afternoon, surrounded by moving boxes and things to do, Jeff and I halted all progress for Con-Air. It was no Fifteen and Pregnant, but few things are.

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