Homesickness Soup

I'm not homesick. I feel guilty for two reasons:

• I bought this soup specifically for if/when I become homesick, but so far I have not had this need. I have missed my boyfriend, my cat, and my friend-friends (in that order... apologies to everyone listed below my cat...), but have yet to miss my family, my hometown, my bedroom, or the other animals at my house. This makes me feel like a horrible person. But I just don't miss them. Like, at all. What kind of person am I?!
• I also feel guilty. I just didn't feel like going down to the cafeteria after a rather long, sweaty, intense bike ride this afternoon, and I wasn't in the mood for, well, anything I have (which happens to include A LOT of food). So I made this soup.

The soup I made was on sale for 59 cents, so I decided to get it. It happens to be Grandma's canned soup (chicken noodle soup with the long, skinny noodles, thick chicken broth, and no vegetables). Just the smell takes me to my grandmother's dining room, where I have spent many a lunches eating canned chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese with cheddar cheese and wheat bread (which differed from my mother's American cheese with white bread...and only tasted good when Grandma made it). I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason we had this so much every time we spent a week with my grandparents is because it was the only thing they knew my little sister would eat (and now, she won't even eat the soup...seriously, she becomes pickier of an eater with age, though some parts of it I know aren't her being picky since she also gets sick eating certain foods, other parts (like her hating the "taste and texture of meat" and her distaste for any vegetables besides peppers) can only be summed up with one letter: Elle).

Anyway, I digress. So, I made this soup, despite the fact that I wasn't homesick, using the microwave directions. There were several off things about my soup (though it still tasted pretty good). The first was that the directions ask you to cover the bowl. The only thing I could think of that I had that could possibly be used for this was paper towel...but it fell into the bowl around minute 3 of the cooking process. The second, was that the soup was scalding hot. I cooked it for the lowest suggested cooking time, but still had to wait several minutes before I could eat it. The third was that there was something missing: the chicken. There were literally (and I'm not exaggerating) two pieces of chicken in my chicken noodle soup, making it, in essence, noodle soup with chicken garnish. Seriously. The final, and most important thing, was that it was missing something else: oyster crackers.

(insert family laughing here, other people not even caring). Oyster crackers in chicken noodle soup is just how it's done at Grandma's house. My sister does it. My older brother did it. Even my 6 year old cousin does it. It's just a necessity that there be more oyster crackers in your soup than chicken (though in my case, that only means there needs to be 3 oyster crackers...).

So, that was my diner tonight. It was...reasonable. It sort of reminded me of my grandparents' house, and wasn't used for a bout of homesickness. I feel full of guilt for the reasons I listed before, but also full in general because I ate 2.5 servings of soup today. But, hey, I haven't had any yogurt covered pretzels yet today. =)

Dorm Food

Subscribe in a reader