THE CURE: CHICKEN SOUP

Basic Jewish chicken soup

(Best if you can do this a day or so ahead of serving. So admittedly this isn’t something you can do after work, but it is SO wonderful to have it waiting for you in the refrigerator or freezer, at which point it’s only a half hour away from eating.)

What you need: it is really important what kind of chicken you get - best is a stewing chicken from the farmer’s market (although this isn’t kosher unless it is a pretty religious Jewish farmer) but a kosher soup chicken will also do. If you can’t, well, go ahead with any old chicken, it will still be great. Also you need: 2 large carrots, 2 large parsnips, 1 medium onion, 3 ribs and some leaves of celery, some parsley stems if you have any - and for afterwards: thin or medium noodles, more carrots, and some butternut squash.

What you do: Wash the chicken and put it in a large pot. Add water to completely cover it, and put it on to boil. Watch it, and just when it starts to boil, turn the heat down to simmer, and skim any of the brown stuff off the top of the water. Then add the onion, carrots, parsnips, celery and parsley and bring to a slow simmer. After about an hour pull off a piece of chicken to check to see how tender it is - sometimes the stewing chicken takes at least 2 and a half hours. When it’s really falling apart, take out the chicken and remove the meat and save it separately. If the broth isn’t completely delicious at this point, you can put the carcass back and simmer for a while longer, or simply cook it down to make it more concentrated.  When it is as tasty as you want, you can strain it. VERY IMPORTANT: Put a sieve over another large pot and pour the soup through to strain it. (I once poured all the soup down the drain.) Press down to get every drop of nectar-like soup, and discard what's left in the sieve. Now is the time, if you can, to cool and refrigerate the broth and chicken separately - and once it’s cool, skim off the fat from the top.

Now to serve (this is fast): Peel another carrot and also some butternut squash and slice into pieces. Add it to the strained broth and simmer until they’re cooked (about 20 minutes.) This adds more taste and also are nice to have in the soup. Cook the noodles separately (if you cook them in the soup they’ll absorb most of it - very sad! - I also did that once.) Then add them to the soup along with the chicken meat , heat everything together, and serve. (Maybe a little chopped parsley or dill also, and you just might need some more salt.)

You can fool around with this in a million ways, but this one is the classic.