Put Your Foot In It

In order to get over my lack of a voice (which eventually turned into a mild cold) I decided to make some good old chicken soup. As I leaned over the counter using the last of my energy to chop tons of veggies, garlic and cilantro, several ladies in the house shook their head at my choice of meat.  I had gone to one of the better grocers and purchased a chicken breast.  They kept telling me I needed the "menudo" since it has more nutrients.  I kept trying to figure out what part of the chicken that was.  I told them I'd use it next time since I had no idea what they were talking about.  One of the ladies insisted I get it since it was in the store next door.  And said she would clean it for me.  Clean it?  That should have tipped me off.  Fine, anything to feel better.   The lady at the store handed me the menudo with a huge smile and acted like it was a pot of gold.  I stared at the frozen bag of chicken parts but it was so covered with freezer burn I couldn't tell what it was.  Outside to the cement sink we went to defrost my mysterious bag of chicken parts.  As the ice melted away, I started to see......a foot.  LOTS of chicken feet!  C'mon!  Chicken FEET have all the nutrients??  The lady could barely work for laughing at the look on my face as she taught me how to cut the toe nails off each chicken foot.  As she carefully worked on each chicken toe, the clump of them began to melt and seperate.  And there it was.  I got a little closer and squinted because I knew I was not seeing what I thought I saw.  Amidst all of the chicken feet was..... the chicken head.  I was too through.  I went into yet another fit.  She now had tears in her eyes from laughing at me.  She showed me that we only wanted the neck (like that was better) and she showed me how to clean it.  I felt a little better when I learned that you take the feet and neck out once it's done cooking and give it to the dogs.  I couldn't wait to scoop all those feet out of my soup.  Once it was all done, I took a sip of my soup and well, it was the best chicken soup I've ever made!  And after a couple of days, I was as good as new!  I'll never scoff at chicken feet soup again!

Chicken feet minus the toe nails

Just not right

My pot of beautiful soup with chicken feet on top

Hey!  That one still has a toe nail! LOL