Harmony Pot Pie
A.J. Van Belle
Here aboard the SpaceBnB, we’re all about making your stay feel like home. A lot of folks ask me how I built my reputation for hosting this galactic sector’s most violent mercenaries … without a single incident of bloodshed noted in my Intersector Ratings.
Folks ask, but that doesn’t mean I have to answer. All you spacefaring family-style meal lovers ought to know better than to expect me to divulge all my secrets. You’ll have to settle for a whiff of nostalgia: a tried-and-true chicken pot pie recipe, just like Grandpa used to make back in the day, soaring through the nebula in his old, pre-lightspeed clunker.
Ingredients
CRUST:
¾ cups flour
½ teaspoon finely ground salt, unrefined, from the methane seas of Titan
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup vegetable shortening
1 large egg
3 tablespoons ice water, 276 Kelvin or colder
FILLING:
1 ½ tablespoons vegetable shortening
1 large yellow onion, bioengineered for extra thiosulfinates, because there’s no better bonding experience than crying with your guests
1 pound potatoes, grown in Earth soil. Only the best for your guests!
1 cup synthetic chicken broth
2 medium carrots
2 teaspoons salt, also from the methane seas of Titan. We don’t mix our metaphors—or our salts—around here!
1 pound synthetic chicken breast
⅔ cup frozen Mendelian peas
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves. (Oregano or rosemary will do in a pinch if thyme doesn’t grow well in your ship’s aeroponics system, since thyme is finicky that way)
Instructions
CRUST:
1. Put your two most contentious guests to work on making the dough for the crust. They’ll figure it out.
FILLING PREP:
1. Get your toughest tough guy to dice the onion.
2. Put three other guests to work chopping potatoes, synthetic chicken, and carrots, respectively.
3. Make sure you’re the one to chop the herbs. It’s critical that you, too, have a knife in your hand. I’m not saying you’re going to need it; I’m just saying you should be holding it.
COOK:
1. Preheat oven to 458 K.
2. Ask whichever guest looks the safest around hot objects to sauté the onions.
3. Ask all guests to vote on the best means of combining all the filling ingredients into a creamy mixture topped with the dough.
4. Stand back.
5. Wash the dough off your neck. (Yes, there’s dough on your neck. Just wash it.)
6. While taking the temperature of the room, test the pot pie’s temperature using a meat thermometer. If the room is too hot, remember the airlock is always a valid option for clearing out scraps.
7. Promptly erase all shipboard computer records of any guests who may have been ejected through the airlock during cleanup.
8. Sit down for a cozy meal where guests are friends, friends are family, and everyone always leaves the SpaceBnB a glowing 5-star review on Intersector.
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About the author:
A. J. Van Belle is a writer and scientist whose short fiction has appeared in journals and anthologies from 2004 to the present. Their novels are represented by Lauren Bieker of FinePrint Literary Management. As a biologist, they draw on their science background to inform the world-building details in their fiction. Although they can rarely be found in outer space, you can find them in the kitchen, at the lab bench, on Twitter @ajvanbelle or at www.ajvanbelle.com.
