Garbage Soup

My son is an odd duck.

Whenever we have a meal with chicken with the bones in (roasted whole chicken, Mama was too cheap to buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts, you name it), he requests that dinner the next day is garbage soup.

Garbage soup is not actually a specific meal.  What I do is toss the bones of the old meal and any leftover meat into a pot of water and let it simmer most of the day to make a rich stock.  Then about 20 minutes before dinner, I strain out the bones, pick out the meat, toss that into the pot and start getting creative with whatever I have in the fridge and pantry that wants eating up.   Carrots, potatoes that need eating, ginger, garlic, onion, you name it.  Then I season it however I get a wild hare across my butt to do so.  Sometimes it has pasta in, sometimes rice.

This is a meal we usually have while watching some science fiction show.  (Mama’s been on an Andromeda kick lately.  Bless Netflix for its regular delivery of Tyr!)

While the frugality of it pleases me, I find it amusing my son is so fond of the dish.

Being a writer is a lot like making garbage soup.  You’re taking the leftovers of life and turning it into a nourishing, savory dish.  It’s such a frugal thing, saving the dribs and drabs of what you see around you — the little throw-away moments of life, and recycling it into something to feed the soul.