Chicken Soup and the Act of Sustenance

Chicken soup (the long and short way)... and the humble goodness of a red lentil and greens soup

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Two of my favorite soups: Classic Chicken Soup and Red Lentil Soup with Greens

I woke up on Wednesday with wearied, weighty feelings about how divided our country feels. I’m not the “unfollow me if we disagree” type. I don’t want a world where everyone agrees with me. 12 years of sobriety has taught me to continually examine my own faults (many!) and strengths (also many, yay!) in order to understand and love myself better. That in turn extends to seeing others with more empathy and acceptance. Accepting other people’s values doesn’t mean you have to agree with or adopt those values yourself. I’m not talking about white supremacists or truly despicable people here. I mean people you know who view the world differently. It’s OKAY to have different world views.

You can respect someone’s right to live by their values without endorsing those values. You may not agree on everything, but you can find shared experiences/feelings/ beliefs to connect over. Being around people who challenge your values can actually help you clarify and strengthen your own. Accepting differences doesn’t mean tolerating bad behavior, but don’t let the frenzied whirlwind of social media and the 24 hours news cycle warp you. It is instant reactions, amplified emotions, and information overload. It’s a cycle that thrives on extremes — shocking headlines, sensationalized stories, and intense emotional appeals — all designed to capture and hold attention in a space where content is constantly competing for visibility. Be stronger than that. For yourself, and for your kids if you have them, who are watching us.

Ideally we coexist, communicate, figure things out, and are able to find harmony in opposites. The yin and the yang and all that jazz. I know that institutionally that feels impossible at the moment, but I think individually we have power to work on this. Perhaps it’s our greatest power. It doesn’t mean inaction, hiding from discomfort or pretending things aren’t bad, but it helps to recognize that sometimes the idealogical gaps between us aren’t as wide as media, social media, and politicians would have us believe.

So what do we do? We wake up and find comfort and love where we can. CREATE it where it is meager. Work for the causes we believe in. Find joy in family, friends, nature, and cooking, art, or whatever it is you love. Connecting. Persevering. Protecting those who need it. Giving sustenance to ourselves and others. Literal, physical and emotional sustenance. That word has become a mantra to me this week.

Sustenance: means of support, maintenance, or subsistence… food, provisions…also : nourishment… something that gives support, endurance, or strength…supplying or being supplied with the necessaries of life

-Merriam Webster

And because this is a COOKING newsletter and NOT a political one (though I can’t help myself from sharing the brain stew above)… here is a newsletter of soup. The ultimate food of sustenance. The chicken soup I made for my daughter last week while she had pneumonia (better now!) and the red lentil and greens soup I make to comfort myself. Despite being ridiculously healthy, it’s PACKED with flavor and so easy to make.

Classic Chicken Soup (the long and short way)

This recipe was handed down from an old friend’s Italian grandmother. It goes against all the methods I learned in culinary school about how to make a soup, and nevertheless it is the best chicken soup I’ve ever had. A whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces simmers with onions, carrots, celery and other aromatics. After the broth simmers a while I discard the boiled vegetables and add new diced carrots and celery so the finished soup has perfectly cooked veggies instead of long simmered mushy vegetables. If you don’t want to use two sets of vegetables and feel bad tossing (or composting) some onions, carrots and a few stalks of celery, you can absolutely eat the soup with the long boiled vegetables. I do that sometimes and it’s great. That method is below, called The Short Version.

Usually I take the extra step of straining the soup, discarding the vegetables and adding fresh carrots and celery to simmer for 15-20 minutes. If I’m doing this sometimes I give the soup a really long simmer to extract all the collagen and nutrients possible. It’s up to you if you want to take this extra step, I’ll call it The Longer Version (even though it doesn’t have to be that much longer.)

You will want to use the biggest pot you have. I have a 7.5 quart Lodge enameled cast iron Dutch oven that I love and this is a perfect use for it. A 6 quart will also work, but with the big one you have plenty of room to make tons of gorgeous broth. As for the chicken, if you have a butcher, you can ask them to cut your chicken into 8 pieces and to also give you the back bone. If you’re buying pre-butchered chicken, get about 4-5 pounds of whatever cuts you like; my suggestion would be 3 pounds of bone-in skin on breast, and 1-2 pounds of bone-in, skin on thighs.

If you like a pretty peeled carrot, go for it, rustic skin on works well too. You can add cooked pasta at the end or not. Any other questions, ask in the comments!