Lunch-Box Chicken Soup -- The Bowl That Held Us Together When the World Came Apart

COVID-19. The words that changed the world arrived in Memphis the way all plagues arrive: quietly at first, a rumor, a news story about somewhere else, and then suddenly everywhere, all at once, like smoke from a fire you didn't see starting. By mid-March the schools were closing, the churches were closing, the restaurants were closing, and Rosetta — my wife, the nurse, the woman who has spent thirty-eight years in hospitals — was terrified in a way I had never seen her terrified, because Rosetta has seen epidemics before but this one was different, and the difference was in the numbers and the speed and the fact that nobody knew anything except that it was coming and it was bad.

Mama's facility went on lockdown. No visitors. Period. The most important person in my life after Rosetta, locked behind doors I couldn't open, protected by rules I couldn't override, and the protection was necessary and the necessity was unbearable. I drove to Whitehaven on Tuesday and stood in the parking lot — three stories below her window — and waved. She couldn't see me. I knew she couldn't see me. But I waved anyway, because waving at a window your mother can't see through is not futile — it's faith, and faith doesn't require evidence, it requires showing up.

I am still carrying mail. The Postal Service declared us essential workers, which means I walk the route in a mask, with gloves, leaving mail in boxes without touching the boxes, a ghost of the mailman I used to be — present but not connecting, delivering but not greeting, essential but isolated. The route is the same but the world around it has changed, the way the stage set changes between acts but the play continues.

Naomi is one month old. Marcus and Angela are home with her in Whitehaven, quarantined, the new-parent joy colliding with the new-pandemic fear in a way that must be disorienting. I can't visit. I can't hold her. I saw her on the video call Tuesday night — bigger already, her face filling out, her eyes open and tracking — and I pressed my hand against the phone screen as if I could reach through the glass and touch her, and I couldn't, and the can't was the cruelty of 2020, which is a year that gives and takes in the same breath.

I made chicken and dumplings. Mama's recipe. The comfort food of emergencies, the food you make when the world outside is frightening and the kitchen is the only safe place. I made it for Rosetta, who came home from the hospital Friday night looking like she'd aged five years in a shift. She ate a bowl and didn't say anything, and the not-saying was eloquent, because what do you say when the thing you've trained for your whole career arrives and it's worse than the training prepared you for? You say nothing. You eat dumplings. You hold your husband's hand across the table. You go to bed and get up and do it again.

Mama’s chicken and dumplings recipe is hers and hers alone, and I’m not ready to put it in writing yet — some things you keep close. But the spirit of that pot, the warmth and the weight of it, the way it says you are safe here even when nothing outside the kitchen is safe, lives in any good chicken soup. This Lunch-Box Chicken Soup is the recipe I reach for when I want to carry that same feeling forward: simple enough to make after a long day on the route, substantial enough to mean something to the person you set it in front of.

Lunch-Box Chicken Soup

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups egg noodles or small pasta
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried parsley
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 bay leaf

Instructions

1. Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 6–8 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
2. Add broth and chicken. Pour in the chicken broth and water. Add the whole chicken pieces, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
3. Simmer until cooked through. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, for 20–25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and tender.
4. Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken from the pot and set on a cutting board. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Use two forks to shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces, then return it to the pot.
5. Cook the noodles. Bring the soup back to a gentle boil. Add the egg noodles and cook according to package directions, usually 7–9 minutes, until tender.
6. Taste and serve. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and serve hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 280 | Protein: 31g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 20g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 520mg