Comedy: July 12, 2006 Issue [#1104]
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Comedy


 This week:
  Edited by: Holly Jahangiri Author IconMail Icon
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Table of Contents

1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions

About This Newsletter

This little grandmother was surprised by her seven-year-old grandson one morning; he had made her coffee. She drank what was the worst cup of coffee she had ever had. When she got to the bottom of the cup there were three little green army men in the bottom of the cup. She said, "Honey, what are the army men doing in my coffee?" Her grandson said, "Grandma, it says on TV that the best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup."


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Letter from the editor

Chicken Noodle Soup, Chocolate Fudge, and the Importance of Good Instructions

When I was little, two of my favorite foods were my grandmother’s chicken noodle soup, and her homemade chocolate fudge. I often had tonsillitis, and soup was the only thing I could eat. It was soothing. In a pinch, I would settle for Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and the chocolate or peanut butter fudge sold at state fairs. But it was Monna’s recipes I loved best. To this day, a good bowl of chicken noodle soup makes me feel wrapped in a blanket of love. Even if I have to make it myself.

It’s no wonder, then, that my mother asked her mother to share the recipes. And Lord knows, she tried. Over the phone, Monna listed the ingredients for soup: a whole chicken, water, salt, noodles. Nothing too difficult about that, right?

My mother’s first attempt at soup-making turned out tasting like hot water with chunks of chicken thrown in for texture. We salted it and salted it and salted it - we probably poured half a container of Morton’s salt into that pot of soup just to make it edible. What could have gone wrong? How hard is it to boil a chicken, cut it up, and add some noodles? My mother got on the phone and called Monna. “What am I doing wrong?” she asked. They went over the instructions again, one step at a time. “I did all that--wait, what did you say about chicken broth?”

My grandmother had neglected to mention something about a can of College Inn chicken broth. I’m sure good Jewish mothers everwhere will cringe at our family recipe, but making our own soup stock never came into it. Neither did chickens’ feet. And if you promise not to stick your nose up in the air about that, here’s the real recipe:

Ingredients

one whole chicken (rinsed well to the tune of “Singin’ in the Rain”)

salt

3 - 4 14.5-oz. cans of chicken broth (do not use 100% fat free or low sodium, unless you’re on a weird diet and under a doctor’s orders)

medium, crinkly egg noodles (the wide kind tend to get soggy)

Directions

1) Rub some salt over the whole chicken and add a pinch of salt to the body cavity.

2) Put chicken in a large pot, breast up (like it’s doing the backstroke).

3) Add cold water (just enough to cover chicken, for modesty’s sake).

4) Bring water to a boil.

5) Skim off any foam that rises to the surface of the water, and discard the foam into an old coffee can. If you rinsed the chicken really well, there may not be much to skim; if you did not sing all of “Singin’ in the Rain” while rinsing, you may need a larger coffee can.

6) Reduce heat and simmer chicken for 45 minutes to an hour.

7) Remove chicken from water and place on a plate. Let cool, or you’ll burn your fingers.

8) Add canned chicken broth to the water, cover the pot, and bring it to a simmer.

9) When the chicken is cool enough to handle, cut all the meat off the bones (being careful not to break the wishbone - set that aside for later) and tear meat into bite-sized chunks. Discard skin, fat, bones, and other inedibles.

10) Return chicken chunks to the pot and bring to a boil.

Add egg noodles and boil for seven minutes (or until they are al dente - cooked but still firm), then remove pot from heat.

11) Serve with tossed salad and French bread.

Bonus: When the wishbone has dried completely, choose one person you love to share it with. Make your wishes, then pull the wishbone apart. If you’ve chosen your friend wisely, you’ll both get your wishes - otherwise, the winner is the person left holding the longer piece of bone. The loser gets to throw the bones in the trash.


If you thought you were going to get a recipe for chocolate fudge out of this newsletter, I’m sorry to say I’ll have to disappoint you. I have no clue how to make fudge. I have watched my grandmother make it; I have even helped her, “testing” the chocolate by rolling it into a ball in a glass of water. But the success of fudge-making seems to hinge as much on the convergence of the perfect barometric pressure, humidity, atmospheric heat, and magical influences as it does on ingredients and directions.

Once again, my mother tried to make fudge, following Monna’s instructions. (She double-checked and triple-checked that she had every ingredient and every step covered.) Unfortunately, the weather was too humid, too warm, too highly pressured, or the pixie dust was old - in any case, it turned out to be the best chocolate soup we ever scooped out of a pan with a spoon. It wasn’t fudge, but it was delicious.

I’m sad to say that my mother - perfectionist that she was - never did overcome the humiliation to pass on the recipe for chocolate fudge soup. You’ll just have to experiment in your own kitchen, making fudge, until you get it wrong.




Editor's Picks


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Ask & Answer

Puditat Author IconMail Icon wrote:


Jessie, what a fabulous editorial. Those chuckles have set me off on a great start to the day. I'm going to make my husband read it - when he gets out of bed, that is.

So do tell - did he laugh, or pretend (like Moo) to be all offended?


Kenzie Author IconMail Icon wrote:


Thanks for the reminder about one reason I don't miss Texas. I had forgotten about how many guys spit at the traffic lights.

That took some serious getting used to. I used to make faces and mouth “Ewwww, gross!” at them; now, I just hope they can’t spit far enough to hit my car and melt the paint.


Vivian Author IconMail Icon wrote:


Ooooo, gross! You never fail to surprise me, Jessie my girl.

I happen to know you’re outnumbered by your guys, Viv. Has your experience with the boys been so very different?


windac wrote:


Being the mother of 3 boys (and one of those would be my husband), this issue hit home! Thanks for the giggle so early in the morning!!

Glad to be able to start your day off right! I have one girl and one boy. On the whole, boys seem easier - more guileless - than girls, provided you’re not overly squeamish or easily shocked.




As a male, and although I can't speak for all of us, I think your editorial is completely unfair to the part of my gender that does not live below the Mason-Dixon line or in Texas. I've never spat, tested the velocity of, or aimed taste-bud induced liquid at anyone. Spitting is absolutely, positively, despicable behavior that I don't condone or participate in.

I hope in your next newsletter you talk about the non-sugar and spice that side of the human species that you belong to do... like nagging, complaining and hiding the remote.

If I had been feeling kinder towards my own gender the day I wrote that editorial, I’d have given them equal time with the gentle teasing. Unfortunately, I found nothing amusing about the sugar-n-spice crowd that day.

You lost the remote again? Geez, Moo. Look under the couch cushions. If you don’t find the remote, you’re sure to find enough spare change to buy a new one.




I was in a restroom stall one time and someone had written:

"The capitol of Canada is Ottawa."

Bathroom graffiti should be educational like that far more often.

Good bathroom graffiti is a dying art. It should be educational, literate, humorous, or full of clever, naughty double-entendres. In my opinion, the best graffiti is that where multiple writers have played off each other’s scribblings to create a running joke with unexpected twists and puns. Mere profanity, libelous insults, gratuitous sexual references, and the like are just worthless; they amount to nothing more than vandalism. The clever ones live on in memory for decades and ought to be considered an art form.


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