chicken soup (m)

Harrison has a bad cold.  Coughing, phlegm, green...the works.  Took him to the doctor who prescribed tea and chicken soup.  You have to be oozing pus these days to get antibiotics.

My elderly aunts offer to make "our special homemade chicken soup."  I almost say yes, and then I have a flashback.

It was 1996.  Harrison had strep, my mother was going in for surgery, my husband was in London, Sam needed to be at hockey try-outs, there was a flood in my basement (18 inches of raw sewage), and I had just been promoted to Vice President at work and had to give a presentation to the Board of Directors in two weeks (Warren Buffet was on the board) about a project that was not mine.  Stressed to the gills.

The aunties found out about my predicament and volunteered their soup.  I said "sure, sounds great." Next thing I know, they are at my doorstep with shopping bags full of plastic containers. 

Me: What's all this?
Them:  It's the soup!!
Me: How much soup did you make?
Them: Enough.  It's beautiful soup.  Wait till you see!

And then, they lined up the containers on my kitchen table:

1. large vat of broth
2. large bowl of cooked chicken, shredded
3. large bowl of cooked carrots, sliced in rounds
4. large bowl of cooked celery, diced
5. small bowl of grated cheese
6. large bowl of ditalini (small, circular shaped pasta).

They explained that we could eat the broth alone, or broth plus pasta, or broth, pasta and veggies, or broth, pasta, veggies and chicken (which is what I had signed up for).

And then...when we're feeling better...we can make chicken salad sandwiches with the leftover chicken!  Or, we can eat the pasta with some tomato sauce.  The permutations were endless.

Finding a place for all these containers in my refrigerator almost landed me in The Betty Ford Clinic. It was insane.

So, tonight, after the appointment with the doctor, I went to the grocery store and bought a few cans of Progresso Chicken Noodle soup.  The cans fit nicely in my kitchen cabinet.