Chicken Stew

Guest author: Carol O’Dell
Website: Carol O’Dell

Chicken Stew (excerpt from my book, Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir)

I’m making chicken stew tonight. I need something homey, for the house to smell inviting. Maybe my mother, who has Parkinson’s and isn’t doing well, will take a few sips. I put the chicken breasts, chopped onion, and garlic in Mother’s cast iron stew pot that was probably her mother’s. I throw in salt, a pinch of sugar, fresh oregano and sage. It’s just like she taught me. I crack the lid and let the mixture come to a boil. It simmers for three hours, filling the place with memories. I do the laundry, sit with Mother, fold clothes, read Mother the twenty-third Psalm, make a few phones calls, waiting to feed her, hoping she’ll rouse.

The aromas of onion and garlic grow richer, blending and merging. I chop carrots into very small pieces and a little bit of celery—not a lot. I put them into the broth then sit with Mother again. She wakes up and I lift her head to feed her the Parkinson’s medication ground in applesauce.

I go back to the kitchen and lift the chicken pieces out of the boiler with a ladle and spread them out on Mother’s cutting board, the one with a rooster painted on the backside. I sit with Mother while they cool, then chop the breasts and scrape them into the broth, and add a little butter and watch it melt into the stock, leaving round circles floating between bits of celery leaves, orange carrots and glossy garlic. I fill a large cup with milk, a little salt and pepper, and three generous spoons of self-rising flour, then whisk it pour it into the soup. The broth turns from translucent amber to golden cream. I mash a few clumps of flour with the side of a fork, then turn it down low and go back to Mother’s side. I shake in some ground sage and just a little tarragon. The spices mingle and fill the air.

I take a sip of the soup. It’s good. Childhood memory good. How many times was I or Daddy sick and she’d make this simple stew? I think of adding more spices but decide not to. If Mother’s going to have any, it needs to be mild. She told me this morning that she dreamed she was going to the courthouse to marry Daddy. I help her sit up in the bed, drape a towel across her and offer a spoon of stew.

I hope when her eyes are closed she sees herself young, long-legged, and just beginning to live.