Chicken Soup & Homicide - Culinary Competition Mystery #2

Chapter 25

(Amy)

Amy plunged the spoon into the bubbling stock to get another taste. She blew on the liquid to cool it a bit and then slurped it up. Very interesting. Layers of herbaceous flavor from the familiar, slightly soapy taste of the cilantro to a faint bitterness that Amy didn't recognize. What kind of exotic herbs was in the tightly bound bouquet garni? If Chet and Trisha had won the Chicken Soup Showdown, it most likely would've been because of Trisha's expertise with using herbs.

Amy's cell phone beeped. She had left it on the kitchen island, instead of on the charger dock in the bedroom, as she cut up the vegetables for the stock, hoping Alex would call to say he'd be home for dinner. The beep meant someone had texted her. She tapped the screen and read Alex's message. He had to work late on the LAST, in all caps, big project that he needed to wrap up. Could it be true? The season of the missing husband was almost over? She sent him a reply that she would see him in the morning.

At least the chicken soup would comfort her stressed-to-the-max body, even if Alex was once again unavailable for the job. She hadn't shown him the lace chemise she had purchased from La Belle Femme yet or the gorgeous Grecian-style gown Bridget had given her. It was hard to feel sexy when potential murder suspects were lining up to demonstrate their own special version of crazy. And Pitts was oblivious.

Some serious meditative cooking was in order. She used tongs to lift the whole chicken out of the stockpot. After that was safely deposited on a platter to cool, she strained the stock into a smaller pot. The onion skins, carrots, celery, and garlic cloves had done their job in giving their flavor to the stock. Once again she tried a spoonful of the rich, gold liquid. Nope. Still couldn't figure out what was in Trisha's special soup-flavoring bundle. Colorful little mountains of diced vegetables sat on a cutting board next to the stove. Celery, onions, red and orange sweet peppers, carrots, and white button mushrooms made up the healthy rainbow of vegetable goodness. She picked up the wooden cutting board and carefully slid the vegetables into the broth to simmer and soften. The kitchen smelled so good. A warm foodie hug on a cold and lonely night.

The pasta water was boiling, so she added in a handful of stelline pasta. The tiny stars needed to cook a bit so they didn't absorb all of the chicken broth when added to the soup. Chicken and stars soup was a childhood favorite. It always seemed to taste better than regular chicken noodle soup with the long noodles that needed to be slurped up, often leaving her shirt dotted with oily yellow splatters. The Asian-inspired broth would add some adult zing to the kiddie-style soup.

Chopping vegetables into tiny uniform cubes was the soothing Zen part of the cooking process. She attacked the chicken with two forks. Shredding chicken, ripping it apart with pointy utensils and her bare hands...that was the getting out her frustrations part. If only she could rip Pitts's warped theories apart the same way.

After returning the chicken to the pot and transferring in the cooked star pasta, she left the soup to simmer so the flavors would meld together. In the living room, she picked up a book. Escaping in the pages to a world far away from reality seemed like a good idea. The women's fiction book was set in France and was filled with hunger pang–producing descriptions of food. Her cell phone rang again. Was it Alex saying he had wrapped up his work already and was on his way home?

She sprinted to the kitchen and snatched up the phone. "Hello."

"Amy? It's Bridget Mahoney."

Okay. Not who she was expecting, but considering they had chatted about the murder, the conversation could be far more interesting than Alex telling her when to expect him home. "Yes. What can I do for you?"