Chicken soup

Eastside Road, December 22, 2011—

EVERYONE KNOWS IT as the cure-all, the family comfort, the perfect combination of nourishment, sympathy, and reassurance. Chicken soup. A dead bird in a hot bath, with a few aromatic vegetables to make it palatable.

Turns out a plastic container at the back of the freezer was filled with chicken meat, shredded from who knows what bird, on who knows what date. A box of organic chicken broth, a few carrots, a potato, the tops of the leeks we had, let's see, when, thirteen days ago.

But we'd begun with pork rillettes on toast, and ended with mâche in a shallot-and-sherry-vinegar vinaigrette. You can do worse than this.

Cheap Pinot grigio; Barbera d'Alba, La Loggia, 2010