The Chicken and Dumpling Problem

Tam made Chicken and Dumplings for dinner the other night. I choose to capitalize the spelling because it is one of the all-time great comfort foods. Straight out of the depression: milk, flour and baking powder (okay, okay, so we use Bisquick) dropped into a boiling pot of chicken pieces, carrots, onion, celery. (It's actually the gentile version of matzo ball soup, developed in part because only Jews know how to spell matzah matzoh matza matsa, whatever.) It’s one of my specialties and I led her through to a culinary touchdown complete with two-point conversion.

What a bummer that I’ve taken chicken off my menu. The longer I go without eating meat the more unappetizing it becomes. But the smell of that chicken and dumplings was too much. So, this evening I decided to counter back with cream of celery and dumplings with fresh celery and peas. No caps there. It was good but, to paraphrase, it don’t light my wick if it ain’t got that chick. I ate it, but I’m not proud.

So, sitting here looking at my pot of cream of celery and dumplings next to her pot of Chicken and Dumplings, I’ve come to the only rational conclusion: I’ll cheat. After all, my shoes are leather. I wear leather coats. My cooking mitts are leather. Next pot of dumplings I make is going to get doused with chicken—chicken bullion that is. All of the flavor and none of the parts. I can live with that. You can call it situational ethics if you like. I call it a tasty solution to a meaty problem.