It was a cold fall day, not as frigid as the days we’re having this week, but we felt it more sorely, the chill unaccustomed after a summer of warmth and sun. Gram was babysitting us, so I couldn’t have been much older than ten or eleven. My brother and I had been outside playing in the leaves, jumping and tumbling in the piles beneath the maple trees. The chill and damp eventually got to me, so I came in for a lunch with Gram. She hovered over the warm stove after pulling a plate of leftover chicken out of the refrigerator. Stirring in some flour to a pan of melted butter, she briefly described the steps of making creamed chicken on toast, prompted by my inquisitive curiosity. Years later, I would understand that she was making a roux, the standard starter of any decent cream sauce.
She didn’t expound upon her method, mistakenly assuming I wasn’t as interested in this as I was in the later, reclusive years of Greta Garbo, but I was, and I paid attention to how she went about it. Adding some milk or cream, she stirred steadily, eventually adding the chicken and heating it through. The sauce became thicker, and she deftly toasted a pair of bread slices, buttering them just as the chicken and sauce were coming together. That butter seemed extra indulgent, but it also worked to keep the bread crunchy even with the creamy topping of chicken she spooned onto each slice.
It was a simple plate of comfort food, served by my beloved Gram on a frigid fall day. It was exactly what I needed when I didn’t even know what I needed, and I’ve kept that simple lesson with me for all these years. Nowadays, I’ll modify it for more flavor – the addition of some fresh garlic at the start, and my Mom recently mentioned she uses some celery salt when she makes it. It keeps Gram alive, and keeps us comforted on the cruelest winter days. There’s nothing fancy or excessively bombastic about its basic make-up, but much like my Gram it has its own subtle sparkle, and like her love for us, it came from the heart.
