Carla's Soup

I stayed home with little Sophie today and she mostly slept. Cried some. And we played and read and snuggled. And I made soup.

What I was at the Catholic Worker, I lived with Carla Dawson, a beautiful woman and mother of 3 who could make anything she cooked the most delicious thing in the world. Every holiday, we would be inundated with turkeys and, as is the nature of things, leftovers. She would cook the turkey carcus all day while the rest of us peeled and chopped potatoes, carrots, and anything else that was lying around. Then, we would pick the meat off the hot bones. I would be repremanded by pretty much everyone for throwing out the skin. Man alive, the people would FIGHT over that stuff! We would feed up to 100 people a day, plus there would need to be leftovers for subsequent meals, so we're talking lots of potatoes. Lots of carrots. Big, huge cans of corn and green beans would be dumped in and this soup would cook and cook all day long, giving off the most heavenly aroma. Everyone would burn their mouths on the first bite. We had it often enough that you would think we'd learn, but we never did. The leftovers were kept in ice cream buckets in the fridge and late at night we would scoop out bowlfulls, add a little water, and heat it up on the stove.

So today, I made Carla's soup. I cooked a chicken and made broth. Took the meat off the bones. Peeled and chopped potatoes. Added corn and green beans. And burned my mouth on the first bite. It's not as good as Carla's, but it's enough to make me remember.