January Full Moon: Chicken Soup
Slowing down, simplifying, tending to ourselves and our loved ones.
After the rush of the holiday season has died down, we settle into the quiet chill of January. Up here in the mountains, spring always comes late so we have to keep our spirits up during these long winters. Keeping our internal fire ablaze is an essential piece of surviving this otherwise dreary time of year.
Right now if we pay attention to the daily atrocities in the Middle East, it feels bleak. As a Middle Eastern person with Palestinian roots and a lineage of Armenian genocide survivors before me, I feel the heaviness constantly. I simultaneously feel so much grief and guilt and yet so much gratitude that my husband and I can provide safety and stability for our family.
A theme I’ve been reflecting on this month is slowing down, simplifying, creating space and clarity so we can feel through our feelings and unclutter our minds. In Kate Soper’s “Post-Growth Living for an Alternative Hedonism,” she writes, “We need, in short, to challenge the presumption that the work-dominated, stressed-out, time-scarce and materially encumbered affluence of today is advancing human well-being than being detrimental to it.”
As a recovering workaholic who has long equated my worth to my productivity, it’s been an uncomfortable challenge to experience my slowest year, work-wise, since I entered the workforce. It also meant I got to spend more (nearly all of my) time with my growing family, a rewarding labor in itself. Last winter, my husband had a serious accident right after I found out I was pregnant with our second and we had to figure out how to get through it all.
I focused my efforts on reigning in our household spending, teaching myself how to shop with thrift, and home cooking all of our meals. I organized and streamlined our pantry, and stocked our chest freezer with a month’s worth of home-cooked meals for when our newborn arrived.
Simple, slow, and frugal can be at once liberating and restorative. Recognizing and curbing wasteful or excessive spending can free us, even if just a little bit, from the rat race and give us the most valuable gift of all: the gift of time.
Chicken soup is a simple, humble, nourishing pot of magic greater than the sum of its parts. I first learned this soup from my mom, who would make it on occasion when we were sick. It then became my own go-to recipe for winter colds + flus. And then my husband started making it for us and he really perfected it. I feel so grateful when he makes this nourishing elixir for us.
This soup feels like medicine— loaded with ginger and garlic and turmeric and lemon, it has immune boosting properties. But it also contains the medicine and wisdom of remembering to slow down, tend to ourselves, our families, and our households. It’s warming in more ways than one— the heat from the ginger stokes our internal fire to keep the cold at bay. It gives us the boost we need to get us through the winter.
And today I offer it to you on this January full moon. The winter we moved into our house in the mountains, when we had nothing but camping chairs and a cooler as our furniture, we made a big pot of this soup and ate it together by the fire we built. In this recipe I hope to share that feeling of hygge: love, warmth, coziness, and simplicity— a reminder to slow down and take the easier, more relaxing route. To replenish our reserves. We have to stay healthy to get through the long winter ahead.
Recipe: Chicken Soup
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
2 lbs chicken legs (or skinless boneless thighs if that’s your preference) - my husband prefers boneless skinless thighs which eliminate the work of picking out skin and bones, but I always preferred to keep the bones in while the pot is simmering.
Salt + pepper to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
6 tbsp unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped coarsely
3 large carrots, sliced into thick rounds
3 stalks of celery, chopped coarsely
4 cloves garlic, smashed
one 2” piece of ginger, peeled and chopped coarsely
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp coriander
½ tsp allspice
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups kale, chopped (optional)
2 lemons, squeezed
Plain yogurt for serving
Fresh parsley for serving
Sourdough bread for eating with the soup
Pat the chicken dry and season all over with salt and pepper. In a large pot with a lid, (we use a dutch oven) add 2 tbsp olive oil and sear the chicken all over until lightly browned but not cooked through (about 3-4 minutes on each side).
Remove the chicken and set aside. In the same pot, add the butter, onions, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring often, until softened and fragrant, 4-5 minutes.
Add the garlic, ginger, turmeric, coriander, and allspice and stir well, 2 more minutes.
Add the chicken back in to the pot, coating it with the mixture, and then add in the chicken stock. Add more water if needed to cover the chicken. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and cover.
Simmer on low for 2-3 hours until the meat falls off of the bone easily, or otherwise easily breaks apart if using boneless pieces. If using a bone-in chicken, remove bones when serving (or just eat around them).
Stir in kale and fresh squeezed lemon juice right before serving.
Ladle into bowls, then top with a hearty dollop of plain yogurt and a generous handful of chopped parsley. Serve with toasted sourdough bread.
Spell: Paring Down
Draw a hot bath, add some salts or herbal infusion if you’d like, and soak in the darkness with only candles as your light source. Enjoy this moment away from phones, tablets, books, things to distract your attention. Meditate on what elements of your life you can consciously slow down, and also what elements you can pare back.
Turn each limit into an affirmative statement of what the limit will allow you more time for. For instance, I’ll be (1) making a new household budget, (2) limiting my time on instagram to 15 minutes per day, and (3) committing to buying no new clothing for a year. My affirmative statements are (1) We will have a guide to keep us on our path to reach our financial goals, (2) I’ll have more face time and engagement with my family, and (3) I will find the usefulness of what I already have. Write the affirmations down and keep them in plain view in a place you access frequently.
Take care of yourselves and your loved ones.