Momma's soup and New Years

I made a pot of Momma's soup today and it is all gone. This is notable because I actually got the urge to get up and take a rotisserie chicken carcass and add things to it in a pot. I never get the urge to cook anything.

And secondly, because I am the only one (excuse me Aloma!) who inherited Momma's ability to make soup out of anything and have it turn out nice somehow. My sister Aloma makes fabulous pastry and bread items, so she shouldn't begrudge me this one thing, hehehe

My mother is 87 and grew up in hard times in Bermuda and she wasted nothing. Anything left over in the week went up into the freezer and at the end, usually a Saturday, she would make a pot of soup out of it. She still makes soup now, tho with only herself to cook for, she has to plan for the ingredients.

Momma will call me at 11:45 tonight and see the New Year in with me. We will watch Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper and see the ball in Times Square descend and watch the people celebrate. We have had this little ritual every year for many, many years. I will be happy to tell her I made some of her soup today and that will make her pleased. We will talk about who is still here and who has passed, and chit-chat about other people's business in St George's and the rest of the island.

We will speak about 1/2 hour and we will hang up, glad to see another New Year in on the phone if not in person. Momma calls today Old Year's Day, well that kinda wraps 2010 up and prepares us for a New Year, the unwritten page.

Every year that Momma calls, I have tears in my eyes that she has made it through another year and we can celebrate. I am very blessed that I still have my mother at 55 years of age.

I try not to think of one year when she wouldn't be able to call me and what will I do and how I will cope. Then I push that awful thought away and remind myself that I still have her and how pleased she will be that I made her soup today and didn't waste anything, it was all leftovers with a few additions

Momma I had no barley to put in the soup like you do, and while I had potatoes and an onion, I had no carrots. But that's the way you do it...take what you have and make do

Happy New Year Momma