Cranberry Chicken -- The Soup That Named Itself, and the Sweetness That Stayed

May and the lilacs are blooming on the bush by the front porch, and I cut a handful and put them in a vase on the kitchen table because the kitchen needs flowers, because a kitchen without flowers in May is a kitchen that has given up, and I have not given up, not on the kitchen, not on the teaching, not on Marvin, not on the world outside these walls that I cannot touch but refuse to abandon. The lilacs smell like my mother's perfume, which is a memory so specific and so powerful that I stood at the kitchen table with my face in the flowers and cried, briefly, and then wiped my eyes and started the soup.

I am teaching "Their Eyes Were Watching God" to my juniors via Zoom, and the experience of teaching Hurston through a laptop is simultaneously absurd and revelatory — absurd because Hurston's language demands to be read aloud in a room where the sound can bounce off the walls and the students can hear each other react, and revelatory because the students are reading this novel about a woman finding her voice and her freedom during a pandemic that has taken their freedom, and the resonance is not lost on them. A girl named Destiny wrote in her reflection: "Janie learned that she could be herself even when the world was trying to make her someone else. I think that's what we're all trying to do right now." I printed this out and taped it to the refrigerator next to Sophie's drawing. The refrigerator is my gallery of things that matter.

Marvin had a good day on Wednesday — a genuinely good day, the kind that happens less frequently now but which, when it happens, is like sunlight through a window you forgot was there. He sat at the kitchen table and watched me cook and said, "You're making soup." Not a question. A statement. An observation. He saw what I was doing and named it, and the naming was accurate, and I said, "Yes, Marv, I'm making soup," and he said, "Good," and it was the most normal exchange we've had in weeks, and I held it the way I hold all the good moments: tightly, briefly, knowing it would not last but grateful it came.

I had not planned on Cranberry Chicken that week — I had planned on soup, and the soup happened, but later in the week I needed something that felt like a good day tastes, which is to say sweet with an edge of tart, warm all the way through, and simple enough that I could make it while still thinking about Destiny’s words on the refrigerator. The cranberries reminded me of something preserved, something that holds its brightness even when everything around it has gone gray. Marvin said good about the soup, and I made this the following Sunday, and I thought the same thing: good. Just good. That was enough.

Cranberry Chicken

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour | Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (thighs and drumsticks work well)
• 1 can (14 oz) whole berry cranberry sauce
• 1 packet (1 oz) dry onion soup mix
• 1/2 cup French or Russian salad dressing
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
2. Arrange the chicken. Place chicken pieces in a single layer in the prepared baking dish, skin side up. Pat them dry with paper towels so the sauce will adhere.
3. Make the cranberry sauce. In a medium bowl, stir together the cranberry sauce, dry onion soup mix, French dressing, orange juice, garlic powder, and black pepper until well combined.
4. Coat the chicken. Spoon the cranberry mixture evenly over the chicken pieces, making sure each piece is well coated. Do not cover the pan.
5. Bake uncovered. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, basting once halfway through, until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is glazed and slightly caramelized. An instant-read thermometer should read 165°F at the thickest part.
6. Rest and serve. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before serving. Spoon the pan juices over each piece and garnish with fresh parsley if desired. Serve over white rice or egg noodles to catch the sauce.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 370 | Protein: 31g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 610mg