As a kid, when I had to stay home from school with a cold or the flu, my parents fed me Lipton’s chicken noodle soup and Saltines. If I was lucky, there would also be a glass of ginger ale and a VCR/video delivery from Video Rodeo. Michael Keaton, Elisabeth Shue, and Tom Hanks usually kept me distracted from my discomfort, but my soup and crunchy carbs made me feel like I was genuinely healing.

I’m not sure whether Sir Thomas Lipton and the three dudes who founded Nabisco set out to be associated with sick days, or whether any of those foods actually change anything about the experience of your stomach or throat hurting, but I still find the flavors of that soup-cracker-carbonation combo to be soothing. Maybe it’s the salt and the bubbles. But on some level, it always seemed to work. I usually felt much better. Therefore, it’s a food habit I kept into adulthood. 

That is, until I discovered an amazing eatery in my small college town in western Washington state, called the Colophon Café. The Colophon, situated in the now-absorbed historic town of Fairhaven, Washington, produces the kinds of baked goods, soups, salads, pot pies, quiches, sandwiches, and coffees that made me wish Bozeman would get with the times as they were in 1996. I literally missed its food whenever I came home to visit for Christmas or summer.

Fortunately for me, the Colophon produced its own small soup cookbook, from which the following recipe derives. I started making this soup at home whenever I craved it but was too lazy to drive in from my cabin at the base of Mount Baker, and then I started making it when I got sick. The broth was better than Lipton’s and, in the words of the boy I was chasing at the time: “Its lemony Tabasco goodness trickles through the depths of my soul even as I write this.” (I made everyone who crossed the threshold of my majestic cabin sign in and out – I wish I were kidding.)

Ever since 1996, this has been my go-to recipe whenever I sense even a hint of a cold approaching. I swear the ingredients murder most germs; I make this soup for everyone I know when they’re sick. This is the original version as printed in the cookbook, with the exception of how I do the rice (I cook it separately). Note my personal additions at the end, which are optional. But of course, if you want to get well, you should probably just throw it all in there and savor/choke it down.

INGREDIENTS
1 ½ cups cooked chicken, cut up into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup lemon juice (both fresh and bottled are good)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 dash of Tabasco
1 small carrot, finely diced
1 cup frozen peas
2 cups water
2 cups chicken broth

KT’s ADDITIONS + CHANGES
Above all else: as much fresh, crushed garlic as you can handle – this is the #1 healing ingredient
Lots of fresh, minced ginger to taste – also a very healing
ingredient
Fresh diced jalapeño or other fresh hot pepper to taste – sweat that cold out! (Is that true? Does that work? I don’t know. But it feels true.)
1 onion, chopped – I like a big red onion for color
Cilantro, lime, and/or chili paste – if you want this soup to lean toward Thai flavors
1/2 package of frozen peas & carrots, instead of the above – saves time, unless you require fresh carrots
Diced scallions for flavor and color
Extra lemon juice to taste
Less plain water, more chicken broth to taste
Diced tofu, if you want more protein and like tofu / if you are vegetarian

DIRECTIONS
Cook chicken
Start rice cooking – I throw jasmine rice in my rice cooker once
I’ve started the chicken
Let the chicken cool, cut up into preferred size
Bring 4 cups (or however much you want) chicken broth to a boil
Add the vegetables and bring to a boil
Add remaining ingredients, turn heat to medium
Simmer 10 minutes
Serve over rice and garnish with paper-thin slice of lemon if your
fantasy job is being a food stylist

Or, like me, you can skip the slice of lemon. I just heap some rice in the bowl and ladle soup over it. It can be mild, if you follow the recipe exactly, or you can make it spicy and tangy and runny nose-boosting. Come to think of it, I started craving more spice in this soup when I was heating up leftovers one day, and all the black pepper had settled to the bottom of the container, making that particular bowl nice and kicky. But if that’s not for you, you can stick with the tried-and-true chicken broth plus lemon juice simplicity, and I bet you’ll still feel better – especially if you watch Adventures in Babysitting while enjoying your soup.