“D” is for Dumplings
An old hen or rooster seasoned well and simmered until tender in a dish laden with herbs, onions and celery makes the perfect home for dumplings. Egg sized lumps of dough nestled in a rich broth is as close to paradise as I plan on getting. So good in fact that to limit oneself to a single bowl of chicken and dumplings is not possible, hard even to conjure the person so mean of spirit who would try.
We raise chickens, I imagine, not for the eggs but for their contributions to this one perfect dish. We are impatient for them to mature and reward us with a dinner that grounds us in domesticity. For indeed who would break up or leave the happy home that held the promise of more bowls of chicken and dumplings?
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Reading this weekend Seasons at Eagle Pond by Donald Hall.
