I’ve been sick recently and if there’s one thing that’s good for you when you’re sick, it’s chicken noodle soup. At least, that’s what I hear. Awhile back, I wanted a recipe for making it from scratch when even The Joy says to start with “4 cups Chicken Stock, 39″. So what I do is I buy a whole chicken, cleave it in twain, and freeze half of it (including half of whatever’s included: neck, heart, beak). Next time, I just use the frozen one straight from the freezer. And I boil it until the meat is falling off the bones. Then I remove the meat from the bones and put the bones back in the water along with whatever spices strike my fancy. While it’s boiling & seasoning up, I chop veggies and the chicken, so recently removed from its bones. About a half hour before I want to eat it, strain it and add the veggies & meat back to the broth.

While I was doing this yesterday, my fingers greasy and sticky at the same time with chicken juice (my cats amazingly attentive and affectionate), it occurred to me how intimately involved the chicken is. Now this may seem like a pretty dim realization, but for someone who generally buys boned-skinned breasts (or, more often, tenders), hygenically packaged into plastic and styrofoam, dealing with a whole chicken (or even a half of a whole chicken) brings a level of intimacy with my food & my chicken that is rarely there.

Two things came to mind as I separated the pieces I would be eating from the be pieces I would be using for flavoring.
�Ģ The first was giving thanks to the bird who was the central point of my whole meal. I was taking its (presumed) health, certainly it’s life, and using it for mine. It made me hope that the chicken was a healthy chicken when it died. That it was killed in a hygenic way (eh, not so much with the pain, I don’t have a problem with killing things). It reminded me of how far removed I am from my food. The sage, parsley, rosemary, thyme, and oregano came from my garden. But the chicken, the celery, the pepper, the salt, the onion, the garlic, the ginger, and the red pepper flakes all came from…elsewhere. Who knows.
�Ģ The second thing that I thought of was Luke 22:19 “This is my body, which has been given up for you.” Now, I’m not saying that the frozen half of a chicken is anything like Jesus. But I am saying that that phrase actually meant something to me when I was up to my wrists in chicken goo. The intimate involvement of the chicken in my meal and its 100% commitment to it is now something I can relate to. It’s not a part of Christian doctrine that I ever thought about not understanding, but it is one that never made as much sense to me as it did yesterday, while I was making soup.