Chicken Soup for the Almost-Autumn Soul

It was the kind of day that made me want to run barefoot through a field with a pair of sunflowers bouncing heavily in my hand. Simultaneously, I felt an almost undeniable urge to wrap a pashmina around my neck, and don a fuzzy wool hat. It’s the twilight of Summer, the dawn of Autumn. I can feel it in my marrow, the chill stirring about; smell it in my sheets at night, the crisp earthiness that rises in the final act of the Earth’s yearly path. It was the first taste of Autumn weather.

I get really caught up in Summertime. The heat, the gorgeous sunshine, the fresh veggies, the green grass growing tall and thick. The heat lightning, turning the sky blue and white in the night, flowing skirts and sand between my toes. I get really caught up in summertime…until that first breeze, slightly bitey like the inside of an apple, sweeps through the window and kisses my skin, sending the first shiver of the season through my body. Then, at that moment, my entire focus shifts.

Autumn is far and away my favorite time of year. I love the colors in the world, the temperatures, the angle of the sun at 8am, the way the air makes you want to snuggle close to someone. Everything about autumn is gradual, happening by degrees, sloping towards winter casually but deliberately until one day you look out the window, and everything has arrived; seemingly in a single second coming together to create the striking palate of the season. Those autumnal qualities can be found in food: slow, careful, roasted, braised, stewed. We take our time with autumn’s cuisine, and the defining dishes of this season are the gorgeous soups.

Soup (which isn’t the most glamorous-sounding of words, is it?) is such a versatile meal. Simple in concept, and complex in flavor, soup provides an entire meal in one bowl, often cooked in one-pot. Soup is warm, and hearty, and comforting. It’s not pretentious; it’s normal-people-stick-to-your-ribs-do-some-slurping-if-you-want-to food. I can certainly get behind food like that.

This sudden (and at least in Philadelphia short-lived) change in the weather left me wanting a bowl of Autumnal Goodness. Problem was, it wasn’t full-on Autumn yet—the weather wasn’t quiiiiiite there. The leaves aren’t fully changed, you don’t need to wear a jacket outside, no extra blankets thrown on the foot of the bed. And so, I didn’t want to go full-out Fall with this soup; no butternut squashes and chowders quite yet. It needed to be a great balance of robust and comforting without being heavy and confining.

Chicken Corn Soup was the answer. Now, I didn’t realize this until I was older, but Chicken Corn Soup seems to be fairly regional. My mom made it a lot, and you can find it in almost every deli/farm market in Central PA where I grew up (Knobloch’s Deli at the mall had the best in town in my opinion. I used to go down and get a bowl when I was on break from my shift at Sears in high school. I know, my teenage years were soooo glam). But, in talking to people who aren’t from the same area, they’re not really 100% sure what Chicken Corn Soup is (I mean, not like it’s some mystery—the name of the dish literally gives it all away). Regardless, this particular spin on traditional (but sometimes booooring) Chicken Noodle Soup offered just the balance I was looking for.

Chicken Corn Soup

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
12 oz carrots, chopped
6 stalks celery, chopped
1 large Vidalia onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
16oz Super Sweet White (or yellow) Corn
16oz Water (give or take)
64 oz. Fat-Free Low-Sodium Chicken Stock
6 oz. egg noodles (whatever size/shape you like)
4TBL Olive Oil
1 TBL Herbes de Provence
Salt & Pepper to taste

Coat breasts liberally in olive oil, season with salt & pepper, roast on a foil-lined sheet pan at 375F for 25-28 min, until juices run clear. [do not let the tops of the breasts brown] Allow to cool completely, then shred and set aside.

In a 5-7 quart soup pot (I used a cast iron enamel pot this time) heat 4 TBL Extra Virgin Olive Oil over medium heat. Add carrots, celery, onions and garlic, sprinkle with salt, pepper & Herbes de Provence cover and cook for 10-15 minutes or until softened, stirring periodically. (Usually I’m a huge advocate for brown food, but in this case, you do not want the veggies to brown) Add the stock, water, chicken and egg noodles. Stir together, cover and simmer for about 9 minutes. Add the corn, and simmer for about 4-5 more minutes. Ladle into bowls and serve! Makes about 8 large servings.

Just like most soups, you’ll find as many variations on recipes as there are people making them; everyone’s doing something just a little differently. I started, like I do most of my “down home” meals, with my mom’s recipe, and then developed it into my own. I use roasted boneless-skinless chicken breasts and Herbes de Provence in my Chicken Corn Soup; I think the roasting of the breasts and the beautifully aromatic French herb blend offers a slight air of sophistication and a much better depth of flavor.

Using boneless-skinless chicken breast makes the soup healthier, but if cooked incorrectly they can get really dry, and flavorless. I roasted my breasts rather than poach them. The poaching just doesn’t develop any flavor. Besides, whenever I think of poached boneless skinless chicken breasts, my mind immediately goes to ‘roided-up body builders; they eat lots of that flavorless crap, don’t they? EW. Anyway…It’s important not to over-roast them, so they don’t dry out—if you’re unsure, take them out a few minutes early, and let them cook on the baking sheet; they’ll continue to cook on the sheet as they cool, but also again in the soup.

My soup recipe is also PACKED with veggies—probably twice as many as a normal recipe. I do this mostly out of personal preference—I love a chicken soup with big chunks of carrot and celery and onion. If you use a sweet onion like a Vidalia, the soup won’t be onion-y, the onion will cook down and take on the rest of the flavors in the soup.

A nice little trick: I also used the leaves off the tops of the celery hearts—chop those up and throw them into the soup with the rest of the veggies. The leaves will further season the soup, contributing to more depth of flavor.

Time for a confession: I used frozen corn for this. One, because the fresh corn just didn’t look great in the store, but mostly because I can ensure the sweetness of the kernels will be up to par. DO NOT buy anything that isn’t marked “Super Sweet” on the packaging. Plain old corn just won’t cut it. The sweetness of the corn needs to be there to cut through the savory-ness of the veggies, chicken and broth.

The noodles in this soup aren’t meant to be al dente. This is a spin on old-school PA Dutch food where anything noodle oriented is plump and silky and breaks apart easily. These egg noodles will get that way; don’t look down your snobby foodie nose at them. Embrace the overcooked noodle. It’s what makes food like this so charming. You can use any size egg noodle you like, but I recommend an “extra wide” (noodle, not trailer) or a “home-style” width. They’ll stand up to the overcooking much better than something thinner.

One last thing: Brothy Things Like Bread. This is an undeniable culinary truth. If you fear the carbs and want to forgo the bread, don’t make soup. So, whack off a [generous] hunk of a crusty sourdough (by far the BEST bread for Brothy Things), and keep it close by. Slap a little butter on it for good measure. When you’re eatin’ food that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, a little butter never hurt anyone.

Buon Appetito!

La Dolce Vita

Five years ago today, I stumbled, panting, after hauling my just-made-the-airline-weight-limit luggage up three loooooooong flights of winding marble stairs, through the door of apartamento numero 77 with my best friend, Leanne Perzel, and thus embarked on what would become the greatest adventure of my life.

I miss Rome the way I imagine an amputee misses a limb. I can feel it, but it is gone. Vanished into the minutes, hours, days and weeks of a life I will never live again.

Rome will hit me at unexpected moments, triggered by the smallest thing. An infinitesimal ripple caused in my life, and Rome will suddenly come rushing at me. From behind closed eyes I am there: I hear the crowds lilting their language. I smell the fish markets and flower stands, the intense September sun warms my nose and shoulders, on my tongue I can taste salty grainy parmesan and dry red wine and I am crippled. Sinking like a doomed ship. Leveled by a wave of longing sweeping over my heart. Each time it happens, another small part of me is lost to that place, those days of my past. These pieces break away trailing behind me like breadcrumbs; a path I will never follow back to the place that set fire to my heart and flowed in my veins like a drug.

Every single day I struggle with the memories of Rome. And every single day since setting foot back on American soil, I live a little bit of regret about ever leaving Italy. The sensation of life while I lived there had faded—it springs to life when I spot photographs of the city, or souvenirs I bought along the way. Something is gone from me. It cannot be recreated or replaced. It is simply: No Longer There. And I suppose my greatest fear and anxiety lay in the distance of Rome as each day passes. Will one day, the gap in time be too large?

I walked countless miles in the city of Rome, my feet sweeping over sidewalks, learning the way through a foreign place, memorizing the terrain of the city. I laid my hands on ancient stone, the porous and aging structures leaking the voices of history. I had never been to a place where you could feel history; the millennia tickling the ridges of my fingerprints. It really is a massive thing, the Colosseum. Steamrolling over any previous conception of size and vastness; it is surely an impossibility. Awe struck and silent the crowds stare, all wondering the same thing: How was it possible?

It was at a small restaurant with a golden yellow stucco façade on the Via di Ripetta where I ate the most amazing meal of my life. Papardelle pasta, which I’m sure was hand-made that day by someone’s grandmother—as is everything worth eating in Italy—tossed with jade green olive oil, crispy bits of pancetta, grated parmigiano reggiano, and fresh-cracked black pepper. That was it. Nothing else. Just those five ingredients, in the absolute perfect proportion, tossed onto my plate in such a way that the whole thing appears tremendously effortless.

It’s a freaking art form, the food in Italy. Almost to the point that every single thing you sit down to consume is so damn beautiful it hurts. I was moved near to tears more times than I can count by things like bread, and tomato sauce, and cheese. And this effortless, almost mocking, beauty permeates everything about your surroundings. Just my walk to school alone was punctuated with sights and sounds and smells that made me aware of how incredibly empty life is without things like wizened women peeling carrots, hands cracked and arthritic; rows upon rows of fresh caught squids and fish, the smell of the ocean hanging in the city air; the young man selling eggs from the chickens in his backyard, yolks that were so orange and rich, they stained your fingers.

I meandered down the Via del Corso with the masses, once paved primitively with rocks and cement, now lined luxuriously with Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, and Chanel. It is on the Corso that the greatest juxtaposition reigns: high fashion, expensive cars, and up-scale restaurants dominating the landscape at every turn, triumphs of capitalism and modernity, all of it sitting placidly next to crumbling, ancient remnants of history’s greatest conquerors. Rome erodes at a rate of 1 inch per year; your sandaled feet crusted with dirt thousands of years old. I’d come home, and wash my dirtied, blackened feet in the tub at the end of every day, unconcerned with the history I was washing down the drain. How terribly careless of me; what stories did those particles of dust contain? What primordial secrets was I forever dissolving?

It is my belief that Mother Nature exercised all of her creative genius in the hillsides of Italy. The hills literally roll there, waves of wheat, vineyards, the grapes translucent like strings of Christmas lights in the intense sun, soft mountains of olive trees. I imagine homes where you can reach out of your bedroom window and pluck the plump green olives right off their branches. Whole towns perch precariously on the undulating landscape, painting streaks of gold, turquoise and terra cotta across the horizon. It is more beautiful than I ever imagined it could be.

Even Life itself, in its purest and most unadulterated form—The Act of Breathing—is supremely extraordinary in Italy. It is in those simplest of acts, in those most obvious of presences, in the Gloriously Present Monuments of History, in the hands of nonnas, in the open doorways of pizza shops, on crowded buses, in accordion players grinning ear to ear, in rosey-cheeked children, in perfectly supple egg noodles, in luxuriously smooth bolognese, and in the achingly warm and enveloping sunshine that we find la dolce vita truly does exist.

I miss Rome the way I imagine an amputee misses a limb. I can feel it, but it is gone. Vanished, yet oddly like a ghost, ever present. Burning a vicious, gorgeous beacon into my heart.