Chicken Soup for the Vegetarian Soul

As most of you know, I'll be travelling for a year starting in March. I definitely want to keep in touch with everyone at home, but Facebook is too evil, and a new blog is too much work. After some thinking, I've decided that I will try to put up a quarterly local food-related post on this site. No promises though. :)

I should warn you, though, that my allegiance to the Vegetarian Faith will be put on hold during my travels. When I first committed myself a few years back, I had already decided that travelling outside Canada/US would be an exception. Part of me feels really guilty about this, because it makes me one of those “convenient vegetarian” types. But I can’t imagine turning away the chance to try all sorts of new meaty foods in their country of origin. I guess I’ll just have to live with the guilt.

Debate aside, I’ll need to prepare for this sudden assault on my gastrointestinal system prior to departure. This will be achieved by integrating meat into my diet slowly and methodically (read: very INconveniently) for 6 weeks. Departure date = March 2. Therefore, meat-eating date = January 19.

My first step as a reborn omnivore is chicken broth. I chose this because it’s easily digestible, achieving the ‘slow' part of the re-integration. Plus I really enjoy making broth from scratch; I feel like it's Slow Food at its most basic. And... it also just so happens I saved the leftover meat/bones from a holiday roast chicken left at my place, which was earmarked for the trash. Perfect. Armed with a recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook, I was on my way.

After one tedious hour of "skimming off impurities", I was left with a semi-clear, caramel coloured broth. After straining, adding back the carrots and meat bits, and reducing for another hour, I would say this handsome looking liquid could become a great chicken noodle soup. Or maybe a base for a squash soup using the frozen butternut I saved up from August. Thank you, dear chicken, for giving your life to nourish mine.