Chicken Soup for the Soul for a Cold and for the Tummy

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Mama and Papa were very sociable and had many friends. Papa was a funny man and Mama was considered funny because she just said what she thought. What was on her mind was in her mouth!  Maybe because she was such a small woman people enjoyed her bravado but I didn’t always enjoy it, especially when she told me “I was fat and worthless”. But that was Mama and I had to live with it.   Unfortunately I was in analysis for two years to boost my self-esteem and realize that I was not just a fat bastard.  I still feel worthless even today if I think I am overweight. Please don’t ever do this to your children. Certainly help them and advise them on eating healthy food but please don’t belittle them. Okay enough of the serious stuff.

Every evening Papa would have someone sitting with him at the dinner table drinking beer.  Many nights it was our neighbor George Carlo.  He was a nice man and was built like Popeye at least in my mind’s eye. Our backyards all ran together there were no walls or fences. When we wanted to visit a neighbor we just cut through the back yards.  George and his wife Anna lived two doors away and had one daughter, Georgeanna named after both of them. She was a doll and I thought she was fun.  As a teenager she was very flamboyant.  George being a man of simple taste and very conservative had no idea what interested teens in the 60’s.  Once he noticed a record that Georgeanna had on the record player.  He thought it was  an Italian Opera. He  turned  on the record player and got the shock of his life when he realized it wasn’t an Italian Opera but acid rock. It was Iron Butterfly singing Anna Gotta Divetta.   I just had to tell this story, I still laugh when I think about it today. 

Papa and George shot the breeze for many hours over the years.  They also went to the corner bar that they called The Green Rug.  I asked papa once why they called the bar by that name and he said because it had a bright green rug.  Okay he was not a very creative person.  I was hoping for a better story than that one.  Sorry.

Mama bought the house I was raised in during WW II for $3,000. She paid cash for the house. Mama was always  good at saving money. She saved the money Papa sent her from his allotment checks and her salary.  $3,000 back in the early forty’s was a sizable chunk of change. Because she paid cash for the house she and Papa never had mortgage payments.

Back in the day the banks would allow you to open a Christmas Club savings account every year in amounts of $5, $10 or $20 a week and by the time Christmas came you had your holiday money. Mama opened one each year for $20.00 which she didn’t always use for Christmas money, she invested in the Stock Market.   The house was probably 50 years old when she bought it and it needed a new kitchen and bathroom very badly.  Mama managed to get them both after she made a large sum of money in the Stock Market and Real Estate.  (More about that later.)

Before Mama could  afford to have the Kitchen remodeled by professionals  she had George do small remodeling jobs.  George was a Carpenter by trade but when he married Anna Rocco and moved to New Jersey from Massachusetts. Once living in Jersey he became a janitor at our High School.  George worked on our  house  often and help Mama remodel the kitchen at least 3 times.  

George enjoyed Mama’s chicken soup and when he was doing Carpentry at our home she happily made it for him.  She loaded it with chicken, veggies and noodles of course she made it from scratch.  I loved it to, especially on a cold winter’s day when I came in the house after walking home from school.

I have made 3 pots of Mama’s Chicken Noodle Soup this week. It has been going fast because my husband has a bad cold, and I think he is drinking it.  I swear the man has an appetite of a horse. If he likes something I make in a blink of an eye it is gone. I made the first pot of soup thinking it would last a few days, wrong! Joe liked it a little too much. The next day he came down with a cold so I made another pot.  He did a repeat of what he did with the first pot.  But guess what the cold only lasted 2 days.  Today I am making the 3^rd  pot.  It is cooking on the stove right now.  It smells wonderful.  Since it is one of the few things that I can eat, I have even been eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It sooths my soul and calms me so I am not acting like Broom Hilda, as Joe sometimes calls me.  Even if   we are arguing when he calls me that it makes me laugh and it is a better name than being called a Fat Son-of-a-Bitch Bastard.

My version of Mama’s Chicken Noodle Soup

2 large bone-in chicken breast or whatever parts of the chicken you prefer.  Remove the skin, this makes the stock lower in fat and not greasy.

1 large onion halved

1 whole clove of garlic halved

2 carrots

2 stalks of celery

1 teas. Onion powder

1 Tbsp. granulated chicken boulion

Salt and pepper to taste

1 bag of fresh baby spinach

1 can of corn. frozen peas or vegatables of your choosing

 ½  bag of medium egg noodles

2 eggs scrambled (optional)

Put 8 cups of water in a large stock pot.  Add the first 8 ingredients to the water and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to simmer and let cook for approx. 3 hours.   Remove the chicken and put aside. Strain the stock into a large bowl and discard the vegetables.  Pour the stock back into the stock pot.  Shred the chicken and add to the stock. Add the vegetables and bring up to a boil.  Stir in the scrambled eggs and add the egg noodles.  Lower the heat slightly so the soup does not bubble over.  Cook until noodles are done.  We Italians like to eat our soup with lots of Parmesan Cheese sprinkle on top in our bowls.  If I don’t have the Cheese I won’t be eating the soup.  The cheese melts over the hot soup and adds a nice layer of flavor.