Ode to Maman

Ode to Maman

No, I don’t have a French mother …..hell I am not even French but it sounds special and that is what she is.  I have been thinking lately about my past, where I come from and the people in my life.  How do they all fit in and what have they made me or helped shape me.  The most important person on that list is of course my mother.  She is an incredibly talented woman who in her childrens’ eyes can do anything…  I think that is the reason we never see something as insurmountable.  That is really something to pass on to your children.   These thoughts were loudly calling out to me to be written down as I decided to make some chicken stock…. The smell of the chicken stock on the stove screamed my mother.  I am channeling her while I am making this stock.  I don’t make stock, I don’t have the patience .. that is why I cook and don’t bake.  But throwing the carcass of a roasted chicken into the pot with a few cloves of garlic, half an onion and some carrots and bay leaves was so simple and yet it made me want to tell my mother and everyone else what she is to me.  My own daughters keep saying how great the house smells and they can’t wait to have this soup.. so maybe I am giving my girls what my mother has given me.  A sense of roots, a foundation, the idea that the simplest act can mean so much to someone else.  Maybe someone who you love so much but can never find the words or the time to tell.

All this from a pot of chicken stock.