The inevitable has happened. Mr. Sanders and I have caught COVID. We let our guard down after being so careful and conscientious. Naturally, I first cast aspersions on Mr. Sanders since he goes out into the wider world every day, mingling with humans. As self-appointed amateur CDC investigators, we counted back the days, and realized we must have been infected when we went to a timed and ticketed (yet still awfully crowded) traveling exhibit of paintings at a museum in the big city, where there must have been erudite virus-shedders. Thanks to all the hard work and science that Dr. Faucci has done we have been vaxxed and boosted every step of the way for the last three years, and our cases are fairly light, not that we don’t whine and complain and feel crummy. Luckily, just before the COVID boom crashed into me, I made a vat of chicken soup, which has sustained us this week. And Luke the wonder dog has been very helpful and sympathetic. He has been herding us along the road to recovery.

I prefer chicken soup with rice, while Mr. Sanders is a noodle fan. Both are easy to cook in advance, then put in the bowl just before adding the hot soup. Two happy patients, and no glue-y, congee barrel of chicken soup.

Rummage in the Pantry Chicken Soup

(not completely homemade – but if you feel a cold coming on, or you just got a positive COVID test, you had best get cracking!)

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups cooked chicken, in bite-sized cubes
6 cups chicken broth or stock
2 cups cooked rice
Salt and pepper
Chopped fresh parsley, strictly for decoration

1. Heat a large pot or a Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add butter.  When melted, add onion, celery, and carrot.  Sauté until onion is clear and carrots softened.  Add garlic, sauté for 1-2 minutes.
2. Add chicken.  Stir and cover.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Add chicken broth.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Add cooked rice. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Serve with Saltines.
4. Go back to bed!

This will be much better than Lipton’s Chicken Noodle dried-powder and freeze-dried chicken bits! And certainly better than Campbell’s. Have you ever looked at those pinkish chicken nubbins in the bottom of the can? Well, you were probably feverish and anything warm was going to do the trick.

Thanks again to our friends at Food52 for their brilliant, simple and easy to follow ideas: https://food52.com/recipes/7634-chicken-stoup

Nigella has wisdom to share, with matzo balls: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/chicken-soup-recipe/index.html

Epicurious is an excellent resource, too, with a New York deli variation: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-Soup-108014

A word to the wise: you are going to need chicken soup sooner or later this winter, healthy or not. It’s cold out there! And, no, it will never taste as good as your mother’s. It will ward not off COVID or the flu, but will ease the aches and pains of your miseries. And soon, you will feel right as rain.

“There is nothing like soup. It is by nature eccentric: no two are ever alike, unless of course you get your soup in a can.”
– 
Laurie Colwin

I was having a casual, throw-away chat with the woman ahead of me in the grocery store line, the way you do, just before Christmas. She had admired my colorful reusable shopping bag, and said that once again she had left her bags in her car. I smiled and babbled something about “Good intentions…” and she nodded, vigorously, agreeing. “Yes, they will just lead you straight to H, E, double hockey sticks!” And then she walked away. Wowser. It reminded me of fourth grade, when we were tempting fate and experimenting with the power of the Almighty, or our omniscient mothers, by saying boldly, “Well, beaver’s dam!” And nothing happened. No smiting. No bolts of lightning. The earth didn’t suddenly yawn open with pits of fire. We had to learn to make our own fates. This was autonomy.

In this first week of January, our New Year’s resolutions are still novel and attractive and easy. It is the obvious time of the year to reset behaviors, atone for holiday excesses, and Mr. Sanders and I have jumped onto the health bandwagon. This will be the third year that we have practiced Dry January. So no cheap white wine for a month. Sigh. I am also trying to re-commit to walking 10,000 steps a day. Luke the wonder dog and I used to walk that and more, but lately we have both been a little ache-y, and lazy, and slacked off over the holidays. But as of January 5th we have averaged between 10,000 and 11,000 steps. Three hundred and sixty more days to go!

My doctor eyes me suspiciously when I assure her that I do indeed eat lots of fruits and vegetables every day. Which isn’t always completely true. I do get tired of limp salads, though, and need to up my greens intake. Mr. Sanders and I went to the big city, and wandered through a Trader Joe’s last weekend, and I picked up some novelties. Our normal grocery store does not offer Brussels sprouts on stalks, does yours? Crazy! I was raised when iceberg lettuce, decorated with curlicues of shaved carrots, hothouse tomatoes, and maybe a sliver of purple onion for a touch of the exotic were the norm. I don’t know what my mother, who finally came to embrace garlic, would have said about stalks of Brussels sprouts, unless Julia Child was championing them.

Luckily for me, Julia Child had quite a lot to say about Brussels sprouts. She was even hip enough that she didn’t boil them to a stinky death: https://food52.com/recipes/38991-julia-child-s-brussels-sprouts-with-braised-chestnuts And a judicious application of melted butter makes everything taste better.

Ina Garten is coming into our kitchen more often these days. Her recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts is more hands on, but the roasting makes the sprouts tasty, sweet, and nutty, and undoubtedly the olive oil is better for us. I love the touch of sea salt: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/roasted-brussels-sprouts-recipe2-1941953

More labor intensive is Alice Waters’s roasted Brussels sprouts: https://www.wnyc.org/story/recipe-alice-waterss-roasted-brussels-sprouts-sesame-seeds-and-ginger/ Not an easy weeknight side dish, but would be perfect in February, with friends in for a roast for dinner, and wine!

Mark Bittman goes for the crunch in his Brussels sprouts salad. It’s nice to have something made ahead of time, that you can just whip out of the fridge, and it’s a salad that doesn’t include insipid, vitamin-free, iceberg lettuce. I’ll be able to look my doctor in the eye, and so will you. https://markbittman.com/recipes-1/brussels-sprouts-salad

Brussels sprouts are low in calories and high in nutrients, especially fiber, Vitamin K, and Vitamin C. Just so you know, the path you are taking in this new year does not go straight to H, E, double hockey sticks: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-brussels-sprouts

Happy 2023, Gentle Readers. Walk more, eat your greens, treat people with kindness.

“Good resolutions are like babies crying in church. They should be carried out immediately.”
― Charles M. Sheldon