Chicken Salad in Baskets

April, and the spring has fully arrived — every garden blooming, every tree leafed, every corner of the historic district performing the annual Charleston spring that makes the city feel like a place that exists specifically to be beautiful. I walk to work through the beauty and I am fifty-one years old, and the beauty at fifty-one is the same beauty it was at twenty-one, but the seeing of it is different: deeper, more grateful, more aware that the beauty is a gift and that gifts do not last and that the not-lasting is what makes the seeing urgent.

Carrie is finishing her sophomore year at Emory — the last semester before the JET year in Japan, the last few months as a full-time student before she becomes a full-time teacher. She is finishing her English-Japanese double major requirements with the particular intensity of a woman who has never done anything at less than full speed and who considers the finish line an insult to the race.

I have been writing the cookbook every morning — Chapter Eighteen, which is about Mama's deviled eggs, which is about the church, which is about the congregation at Tabernacle Baptist who requested Mama's deviled eggs at every potluck for forty years and who still request them, even though Mama has not made them in five years, because the memory of the eggs is so strong that the absence of the eggs cannot erase it, and the uneraseability is the highest compliment a cook can receive.

Robert has been spending mornings in the garden with Mama — wheeling her in the wheelchair that we acquired last month when the walking became too uncertain, and the wheelchair is the latest in a series of adaptations that the house has made for a woman who is losing the ability to navigate it independently but who is not losing the ability to feel the sun, to smell the jasmine, to touch Robert's hand as he wheels her past the roses she named in Latin two years ago and that she now knows only as "the pink ones."

I made deviled eggs — Chapter Eighteen's recipe, Duke's mayo, mustard, pickle relish, paprika. The eggs were perfect. The congregation would approve. And the approval, imagined, is the only review the eggs need.

Writing Chapter Eighteen put me back inside every fellowship hall I’ve ever stood in, paper plate in hand, scanning the potluck table for the dishes that the congregation returns to year after year — the ones whose absence, if they ever didn’t show up, would be felt like a missing person. Mama’s deviled eggs were one of those dishes, and Chicken Salad in Baskets was always another: tidy, elegant in a practical way, the kind of thing a woman brings when she wants the food to speak well of her without making a fuss. After a morning spent imagining the congregation’s approval over a bowl of Duke’s and paprika, it felt exactly right to carry that same spirit to the table.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 32 minutes | Servings: 24 baskets

Ingredients

2 cups cooked chicken breast, finely chopped
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
24 mini phyllo tart shells (pre-made, thawed if frozen)
Paprika and fresh parsley, for garnish

Instructions

Prepare the shells. Preheat oven to 350°F. Arrange phyllo tart shells on a baking sheet and bake for 10–12 minutes until golden and crisp. Remove and let cool completely.
Mix the chicken salad. In a medium bowl, combine the chopped chicken, mayonnaise, sour cream, celery, pickle relish, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, garlic powder, and onion powder. Stir until evenly combined.
Season to taste. Add salt and black pepper as needed. Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes to allow flavors to come together.
Fill the baskets. Using a small spoon or piping bag, fill each cooled phyllo shell with a generous teaspoon of chicken salad, mounding it slightly above the rim.
Garnish and serve. Dust each filled basket lightly with paprika and top with a small sprig of fresh parsley. Arrange on a platter and serve immediately, or refrigerate up to 2 hours before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Salad in Baskets — The Congregation Would Approve