Chicken Stock

September is usually my favorite month, I usually love everything about it. I love the slow slide from summer into fall; the crisp cool mornings and warm afternoons; the pull to open bottles of red wine. I look forward to September all summer, but this year I was not at all sorry to rip the September page off of our calendar. I’ve hesitated to share more, but what I’ve experienced are universal experiences; experiences that many of you have been through or might go through someday. Beyond that, I don’t know how to write without being honest and transparent.

At the end of August I got two pieces of sad news: at my eight week ultrasound I learned that my pregnancy wasn’t viable, and someone very dear to me, a wonderful woman named Linda, would be passing away. The first two weeks of September passed in a strange blur of anxious anticipation, denial, and grief. I was able to get to Seattle to say goodbye to Linda, and I’m so grateful for that. I’m also incredibly grateful to have friends who don’t point out how sick and sad and tired you look, but instead literally offer you a shoulder to cry on. I had a miscarriage in the middle of the month, in my tenth week of the pregnancy. A week later Linda passed away.

We just got home from a trip to Seattle to celebrate Linda’s life, and we managed to have some much needed fun with our family and friends. I am ready for a really peaceful, cozy, quiet fall. I’m working on my own, with Kyle’s unwavering love and support, and with a counselor to let all of the stress and anxiety of the last month melt away, to experience and process the grief that comes with loss, and I’m slowly getting back on my feet physically and emotionally. I haven’t been cooking too much, mostly reverting to comfort food basics.

I recently went for an acupuncture appointment with a woman I’ve known and seen for years. She asked me, “Are you eating well? I know you know how to cook.” I know that what she meant was that I know about nutrition; I understand what’s good for me, and what’s not. But what I heard her ask was, “Are you nourishing yourself?” Feeding ourselves is about so much more than our ability to take food from our oven and put it on our table and into our bodies. Appetite is about more than our basic need for calories.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I come here to write about, and when it comes down to it it’s less to do with the recipes than it is to do with the way our stories and lives intersect with food and nourishment. We all have our own ways of showing love, and mine, in a big way is through food; through nourishing the people I love. Food is an incredible way to transmit love. I know how to cook, to feed, to nourish others, but nourishing myself is something I am slowly learning to do more of… and something I certainly need a lot of right now.

I think it’s fitting that the first things I’ve cooked since getting back up on my feet are roasted chicken, ramen with tofu, chicken and dumplings, and chicken noodle soup. These all start with the same base: chicken stock. At first I was pulling stock from the freezer, but then I started making it again. Stock is the most basic thing, it takes very little effort and energy to make, but the end result is something that is fortifying, comforting, and nourishing. It is also the type of cooking that leads to more cooking because stock is only one ingredient in a meal. Once the stock is made you have to ask yourself, “What do I want to make with this?” Making stock is the first step in creating a nourishing meal.

I approach making stock in two different ways: sometimes I find whole chickens on sale and the price is worth making stock from the whole bird; most of the time I make stock from the bones and leftovers from a roasted chicken dinner. I also use a mix of whole vegetables and vegetable scraps. Throughout the week I keep a sealed container in the refrigerator for all of those vegetable scraps: carrot peels and ends, tops and bottoms and peels of onions, the base of the celery stalks, the woody ends of garlic cloves, the stems from a bunch of parsley, etc. When it comes time to make stock I add those to pot along with an addition chopped up carrot, celery stalk, or roughly chopped onion if needed. Sometimes I accumulate enough over the course of the week that I don’t need to add any additional vegetables. I also add in a handful of fresh herbs like parsley, rosemary, thyme, and sometimes sage or oregano, depending on what’s plentiful in the garden. A bay leaf and a palmful of peppercorns round out the stock.

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All of these vegetables are added to a pot with the whole chicken, or the chicken backbone, bones, and leftover meat. The lot is covered with cold water and simmered on the stove for hours. The result is something far beyond what you can ever buy in a can or box of store-bought stock; it’s like the difference between a Bud Light and a craft beer. Homemade broth is rich, gelatinous, and incredibly flavorful. I’m presenting you with both versions of my stock: the version made with whole, uncooked chicken, and the version made from leftovers.

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