Soup Diary 100121

I had a pile of papers to grade a few days ago, so I went to the local diner for a little lunch while I plowed through them. This place offers chili and chicken noodle soup; I went with the latter. Their version, no doubt from a mix of some kind, is identical to the "homemade" chicken noodle soup available in I'm guessing 75-80% of the places that serve the stuff. Big chunks of chicken, fat wimpy noodles, and flavorless if it weren't for the overdose of salt. It was so disillusioning that the next day I made up a big batch of my own-- truly homemade-- version. Since I don't use a recipe, there is a kind of hit-or-miss element when I make chicken noodle soup, but things turned out really good this time (or maybe that impression was effected by the immediate comparison with the lame restaurant stuff that set me off). My secret ingredient is cilantro, but I only had some of the dried kind handy, so I know I can do even better. But at least my noodles (actually orzo) retained a bit of backbone. I anticipate enjoying the leftovers for the next several days.