Chicken Pot Pie with Melina Hammer | Saturday 02.22.25 @ 4pm
What could be better on a cold winter's night than a hearty pot pie loaded with veggies in a rich béchamel sauce. Think your classic pearl onions, peas and carrots + winter radish and turnips...all nestled under a gorgeously burnished crust.
Everything from scratch here folks -- no frozen cheater crust and no frozen veggies! We'll make our own pastry and learn a nifty trick for easy-peeling those pearl onions too.
To kick things off, we'll start with an umami rich Green Goddess with colorful veggies for dipping, then finish with some luscious Posset Custards with persimmon + crunchy pistachio praline on top!
ABOUT THE CHEF
Melina is the IACP award-winning author of A Year at Catbird Cottage (2022, Ten Speed Press), a love letter to food's seduction and eating with the seasons. She is also a food stylist, recipe developer, chef, and food photographer, and the owner of Catbird Cottage in upstate New York, where she and her husband host travelers who have made their home the place to celebrate their special moments.
A Year at Catbird Cottage received a 2023 IACP award for Best Food Photography & Styling, and was named an Amazon Editor's Pick upon its debut. Her previous book, Kid Chef (2016, Sonoma Press) is a bestseller, empowering young people in the kitchen, and appeared in the Disney movie Noelle (2019), starring Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader, and Shirlely MacLaine.
Melina has appeared on podcasts including Cookery by the Book, Play Me a Recipe, Of a Certain Age, and Creative Live We are Photographers. She has contributed to Bon Appetit, Food52, The New York Times, Cooking Light, Eating Well, The Kitchn, Edible, Martha Stewart, and Row 7 Seeds. In 2018, Melina won an IACP award for Best Food Styling, and in 2020, was nominated as an IACP finalist for her Instagram, @melinahammer.
Above all, Melina relishes in preparing delicious menus for supper clubs she hosts at her cottage. She loves foraging wild foods, growing food in her kitchen garden, tending her pollinator gardens, and hanging out on her hillside deck, watching the antics of the local wildlife.