Chicken soup for the stomach

There I was, impersonating the hunting bit from hunter-gatherer.  So, yes, I was in the supermarket.  Suddenly I was accosted in the diminutive.  Very few people are left alive that can do that.  This was my cooking teacher.  She is one of them. 

“What are you eating tonight?” she asked.

I was planning fast commercial fried chicken.  But it was as if your classical music teacher caught you in the rap section of the local music store. “I was hoping the Chinese place would make my food tonight.” I ventured.  Lying badly. 

“Nonsense!  Try this.  Fry an onion and some garlic.  Add some chicken pieces and fry that for 2 minutes.  Then add a can of sweet corn and the same amount of chicken stock.  Trust me, this is the best soup in the world.”  She then proceeded to check if I had all the ingredients.  The sweet corn I did not, for I did not have the heart to tell her I don’t like sweet corn.  I left with all I needed. 

And she was right.  Despite my previous dislike of sweet corn, I liked this soup.  So I now like sweet corn.  I will make this soup again.  I added some milk and left the coriander out, but the rest was her recipe.  Lesson relearned: Don’t argue with the experts.

The last conversation when I left work was about kidney stones, so getting a good recipe before home was a delightful bonus.  What made it better was finding very good Sauvigonon Blanc in the local supermarket.  Gyles Webb makes exceedingly good wine at Thelema.  Once a year I make a pilgrimage to the farm, fill the boot, max the credit card and look for space in the wine rack.  Almost half of the stock these days is Thelema’s Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet.  But I missed last year, this despite the fact Mr Webb liked the Sauvignon Blanc of 2010 very much.  Very poor performance from me.  After sampling the 2010, I will be back tomorrow, probably clearing the supermarket stock.

To my utter delight, the store now stock not only Thelema Sauvignon Blanc, but also Sauvignon.com’s 2010 version, which was highly rated by Wine magazine, untried by me.  And there to add to my wine spending spree was the eponymous 2011 Sauvignon Blanc.  Happy days this week!