One of my family’s favorite recipes is called “Asian Chicken Noodle Soup.” It comes from the pages of a cookbook that’s older than me. A leather-wrinkled, tough-foot cookbook that’s been splattered, spilled on, desecrated, destroyed, taped back together again, and thrown into fire at least twice, all done gently and with overwhelming love. Asian Chicken Noodle Soup was my parent’s first child. As long as it’s the four of us and Soup, the table feels fuller than it does as Thanksgiving. Soup is a family endeavor. My brother and I knew to drop everything and start stepping to the kitchen as soon as that smell hit our noses. The table was just big enough for the 4 of us, but now it felt like the world could lean on its everlasting arms.
Sundays were soup days growing up, so I associate its gingery, irresistible aroma with another gut-wrenching New York Jets loss. I can think of two times the butt-fumble, ever suffering Jets made my tears into another ingredient. When you squeeze lime into it, angels sing. When you slurp down the last of the broth and chew on the little bits of ginger at the bottom of the bowl, Jesus weeps. Gingery explosions of tomato-paste, chicken-noodle flavor and vegetable crunch ignite like fireworks in your mouth, and you drink it all down in one gulp like the whale swallowing Jonah. This soup is sweeter than communion.
And when it’s all over, that book, if you can even call it a book any more, gets wedged back up on the shelf, the dishes get washed, and we are one. Not even the Jets could spoil this.
