Chicken Velvet Soup from L. S. Ayres (A Vintage Non-Trendy Comfort Food Recipe)

The flagship L. S. Ayres department store in Indianapolis closed in 1990.  It was nine floors of shopping Nirvana.  In the basement were a pharmacy, florist, music department, books and magazines, stamps and coins, greeting cards, and the bargains and closeouts from all the other floors.

The first floor had cosmetics, jewelry, accessories, and all the typical "entry" departments.  There were floors for furniture, linens and kitchenware, and clothing - the higher, the more expensive the clothes, until you got to the Crystal Room - WAY out of my price range!

There were beautiful brass and glass elevators, but I like riding the escalators to the eighth floor - the top floor - where there were a Godiva candy kiosk, auditorium, hair salon, and the famous Ayres Tea Room, haunt of "ladies who lunch" and downtown workers.  One of the iconic menu items was the Tea Room's Chicken Velvet Soup.  There's nothing like it.  I've been to plenty of restaurants that list Chicken Velvet Soup on the menu, but when I've ordered it, it's turned out to be plain old cream of chicken soup, sometimes even with vegetables in it - blashphemy!  The real thing has a smooth, creamy, velvety feel on the tongue and a pale golden color.  The Indianapolis Star newspaper published the recipe several years ago, and I finally got around to making it.  Perfection!!!


CHICKEN VELVET SOUP

3/4 c butter
3/4 c flour
1 c warm milk
2 c hot chicken stock
1 c warm cream
4 c chicken stock
1 1/2 c chopped cooked chicken
1/4 t salt
dash white pepper

Melt butter in a saucepan and blend in flour.  Add warm milk, 2 cups of hot chicken stock, and warm cream, stirring constantly, and bring to a boil.  Turn down to let simmer.

Add remained chicken stock and cooked chicken.  Add salt and pepper.  Bring back to a boil, then serve.

NOTE:  I used some shortcuts when I made this recipe, and it came out exactly how I remembered it to be.  Instead of chicken stock, I used chicken broth fortified with chicken base (Tone's or Better Than Broth are good choices).  Instead of cream and milk, I used half-and-half.  I used canned (GASP!) white meat chicken.  And, I did it all in the microwave!  (I halved the recipe.)

REWARD (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

REWARD.  That word always conjures up "Wanted" posters from the Old West and "Lost Pet" posters that offer monetary rewards.  Or credit cards that offer airline points or cash back rewards.  Or rewards in heaven.  Big stuff.  But external stuff.

I go for the small stuff - the internal stuff.  You can't achieve the big stuff without the small stuff.

A race finished.  A Beethoven sonata learned.  A chemo cap knitted.  A painting attempted.  A workout completed.  A blog post written!

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "REWARD."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

PLACE (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

In the movie Hugo, the main character tells his new friend that the world is like a machine - that a machine is made of many parts, but only as many as are needed, and that there are no unnecessary parts, so everyone in the world has a purpose - a place.

Have you ever been told to stay in your place?  It doesn't have to be in words, but it can come from unexpressed expectations.  Do you have a place?  Who defined your place?  Was it you?  Your parents?  Your friends?  Society?

What IS your place?  Are you there, or do you still need to get there?

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "PLACE."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

New Year, New Knee! (Part 2)

It's been a while since I wrote anything, mainly because of the festive post-surgery activities.  One of my friends told me that physical therapy is a full-time job.  I thought I knew what she meant.  However...!

The day after I left the hospital with my shiny new titanium knee, I went to my first outpatient physical therapy session.  I've been going three times a week and doing my exercises at home twice a day since then.  After each exercise session, I've iced my knee to control the swelling.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but by the end of the day, I'd be wiped out.  After I ate dinner and cleaned up, about all I was good for was vegging out in front of the TV.

I progressed really well until three weeks ago.

I got sick.  REALLY sick

I had a couple of days I didn't dare leave the house.  Then, after I got over that, I woke up Sunday with a familiar feeling - hot eyeballs.  Fever.  As the day wore on, my eyes felt hotter, my head hurt, and my sinuses started draining.  I got a sore throat and started coughing and blowing my nose like mad.  I lost my appetite and all my energy.

The following Monday I literally dragged myself out of bed, to the doctor, and back home.  I couldn't eat anything but cold cereal.  Ugh.  I dragged myself to the pharmacy after my prescription was filled and dragged back home.  Again.

I didn't sleep well in bed because I was uncomfortable and couldn't breathe well, so I'd get up in the middle of the night and move to the recliner.  I wheezed with every exhale, then I coughed until I thought I was going to toss my cookies.  I was too exhausted to read any of the books I had stacked by the recliner (now THAT'S sick).  Good times.

I spent most of my time those two weeks in the recliner.  In addition to the medicines I was taking for my knee and my usual allergy stuff, I took a bunch more for the sinus infection - Augmentin, Mucinex, Robitussin, Sudafed, Afrin nasal spray, and Chloraseptic throat spray.  The meds have so many different dosing intervals I had to write out a medicine schedule just like they tell OLD PEOPLE to do.  Of course, I'M not old (!), but...  Ugh.

Robbie took over my lap.

Before I got sick, I'd started to dismantle the sickroom accessories surrounding the recliner, but I had to put them all back in place.  Here's my view of the world most of the day while I was sick - basically the same view I had a lot of every day since I got home from the hospital.  I'd been either in the recliner doing some of my exercises, in the recliner icing my knee, or in the recliner reading or watching DVRed movies.  With a cat (or two!) on my lap.  I had about as much oomph as an overcooked noodle those weeks from being so sick, so I hadn't done my exercises or gone to physical therapy all that time.

Bad, bad, bad.

But earlier this week, suddenly, I felt like a real person again.  So I went back to physical therapy and started doing my normal STUFF again, including dismantling the sickroom stuff around the recliner - AGAIN!

Maybe it'll STAY that way this time around.