Mother's Day and Chicken Soup

As I drove from errand to errand today, I was listening to NPR.  There was a food show playing between 1:30 and 2:00 p.m. PST on 5/11/12, but I am not sure of the name of it.  The message, however, caused me to feel great joy and appreciation.  The part of the show I caught was talking about recipes people had sent in from their mothers and grandmothers.  Then they played recording of a caller from 2008. 
The woman told the story of what it was like to get her grandmother to tell her what exactly went into her famous chicken soup.  This grandmother had lived through the Holocaust, and joked that she thought God had forgotten her.  It was a wonderful story of the grandmother saying things like, "put water in the pot" only to have her granddaughter say, "how much water?"  The grandmother never did get too specific, and the granddaughter still got her recipe.  There was one way the grandmother said her granddaughters would be sure they had done it right -- they were to put the soup in the refrigerator overnight and check to make sure it gelled. 
The caller than added that her grandmother went on to live to be 104.  The day of her grandmother's passing, unbeknown to either the caller or her sibling, they had both made chicken soup.  Later that day, they learned of their grandmother's passing.  They checked.  The chicken soup had gelled. 

This touched me so because chicken soup is one of the many foods my mother makes that is the 'best of the best', yet when her granddaughter, Dana, wanted the recipe, she did write it down.  Mom's chicken soup is still a high demand item, yet now our daughter Dana's chicken soup has taken over in our freezer. 

Each time Dana visits one of her many cooking 'jobs' is to fill the freezer with chicken soup (my Mom always did that for me before leaving to go back to New York -- but she has stopped visiting in the last 10 years!).  It is a known fact in our house that as generous as my husband, Richard, and I are normally, that generosity vanishes when it comes to sharing Dana's chicken soup. 

On one of Dana's most recent trips she was busy making us soup.  A friend was there who was accustomed to taking home leftovers.  At the end of the meal he said he noticed we were not offering to allow him to have any.  My only response was:  You noticed right! 

The photo on this blog is my Mom's recipe, in her handwriting, on that same piece of paper she wrote out for Dana 10 years or so ago. 

Memories take on so many meanings.  For me chicken soup will always be love.  I love you Mom.  I love you Dana.  Thank you.  Happy Mother's Day to all.

Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD
www.ServingSuccess.com
www.DontDieBooks.com
DrSuccess@ServingSuccess.com