My son is eating chicken soup. Oh, HAPPY DAY! This may seem like a small thing, but in my world–the world of the mother–it is monumental. What it means is, that he accepts not-always-identifiable objects floating around in his soup bowl, including onion, celery, carrot, garlic, fresh herbs… It also means that he accepts that everything is touching–chicken touches broth, touches parsley, touches his SPOON. I didn’t say one word about it. When he said “Mom, this soup has so much flavor. It’s delicious.” I said, “thanks, Ferd, I’m glad you like it.” (implode, implode)
Cut up one onion, two carrots, and three stalks from the inside of the celery into small pieces. Heat up a heavy saute pot and coat the bottom with a good spill of olive oil. Cut a clove of fresh garlic in half and let it go golden. Remove from the pan and take the skin off. Add the onion mixture and season with salt. Saute until for at least fifteen minutes, stirring every once in a while to prevent too much browning. Add a bay leaf and a few tablespoons of roughly chopped parsely. Smash the reserved garlic clove and chop a bit to puree. Add to the onion mix. Give it all a little grind of freshly ground pepper. Peel and chop a potato into small bits. Add to the onion mix, and allow to saute until the potato sticks to the bottom of the pan. Cover with water and bring to simmer. Add one chicken breast, from a grain fed, never met a steroid chicken, no skin, but still on the bone. (If you like parmesan, save a rind from parmigiano reggiano, scrub well, and put it into the pot with the chicken. Don’t forget to remove before serving.) Allow this to simmer, covered with the lid tilted, for about 20 minutes, or until the meat is just cooked through. Remove the chicken and let it sit on a plate for about 5 minutes. Remove the bone and put the bone back into the pot for another 10 or 15 minutes to deepen the flavor of the stock, then remove. Shred the chicken. You can cook pasta al dente on the side for this, or not. If you are using pasta, drain it well, then put about a half a cup into a soup bowl, along with a little of the chicken. Pour the hot soup over. Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve. (For even more flavor, you can add a sprig or two of fresh thyme in the beginning, a piece of ripe fresh tomato or canned, a piece of fresh fennel chopped up with the vegetables, or a sprinkling of parmesan over the soup bowl at the end. You can even make a gremolata of mashed raw garlic, fresh lemon zest (no pith), toasted bread crumbs and finely chopped flat leaf parsely, and sprinkle it over that over the soup bowl before serving.)