Soup

Chuck has bought a chicken. He sounds proud. The chicken sat in his icebox for three days, wrapped in its original plastic, and now he wants to make soup. I make a worried sound.

“Better take a good sniff,” I say.

“It’s fine,” he says. I decide not to argue.

“So throw it in a pot, chop up celery and a whole lot of carrots, cover it with cold water, and simmer it until the meat wants to fall off the bones.”

“I don’t have many carrots,” he says.

“Go get some. The ones you cook with you can eat, but then put more in at the end to make the broth sweet.” Then I tell him a terrible secret. I put a little sugar in the soup if the carrots aren’t plentiful or sweet.

“You can fry up the liver for Pojd,” I say. “But throw the gizzard in the soup. It is delicious with salt.”

He cooks it. Then the soup sits on the back of his stove for days, but he declares it a success.