Mom, your chicken noodle soup STINKS, literally.

A few weeks ago, a very nice lady asked me to be a member of a supper club.  This supper club is like a cookie exchange.  You make six identical meals, show up and get six different meals. 

At first, I was hesitant.  I called my BFF and told her that I loved the idea but I was fearful.  My fear?  How could anyone be afraid of such a great concept?  Harmless and so helpful to any mother of active children; supper club is a fabulous idea.  I was fearful that the other members of the club, whom I did not know, were horrible housekeepers and they would be cooking in dirty kitchens.  There, I said it and I let it out. Yep, my fear, moms cooking in dirty kitchens. 

Years ago when my brother and I were little, we went to my mom's friend's house. She sat us down at the table and asked us if we wanted pie.  My brother answered, "no".  The lady said, "No pie?  I have never known a child to refuse pie?  Why don't you want pie?"

"Because your house it dirty."

My mother was the color of those cherries in the pie.  I will NEVER forget it.  Never.

Well, I thought about my nice friend who asked me to join the club.  Her house is clean.  Typically, "birds of a feather flock together."  If her house was clean,  I bet the others would be clean too.


So, I joined.

I got the first assignment.  I learned that all of the members had small kids.  So, I chose to make chicken noodle soup.  Oh, the excitement.

I cut the parsley from my own yard, bought organic chickens, thyme, carrots and onions and off I went to the kitchen.

You have no idea what size pot you need to make chicken noodle soup for six families.  The pot was huge. 

I made my soup Thursday night and had my other neighbor (who has a very clean house and is a great cook) taste it.  She said it was awesome.

I left the soup on low all night, turned it off Friday am and left it on the stove to cool so I could package it later.

When I came home with the kids in the afternoon,  the three of us were sooooo happy. Friday afternoon, the weekend, Yay!.

As we approached the front porch, the WORST smell in the world was coming out of my house.  Seriously, if this was a Disney movie, there would be Ursula like women dancing on my porch, chanting, "your house it stinks, It really, really, really stinks!"  We walked in. Seriously, I was gagging.  I thought maybe Ruthie (the cat) had brought home a dead animal and brought it inside.  The three of us began searching the house for the culprit.  It was a horrendous stench.  And then, we found it.  The stench came from the kitchen, in the soup pot. 

That's right.  It was the soup.  RANCID.  The soup was spoiled.  The pot was enormous and it was filled to the very top with rancid chicken noodle soup.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, it was only about forty five minutes to showtime when I was supposed to go deliver the soup  to the ladies in the club (that I had NEVER met before).

I have been a boss, a vice president, employed for years, a mother of three, fifty years old and I panicked. I did not know what to do. I called my friend who tasted the soup, asked her what to do and then I did something that shocked me about myself.  I called the "leader" of the supper club and said, "can you come down here?"  How stupid was that?  She was about to have six ladies show up at her house, she had meals to do and she has three small children.  Was she supposed to wiggle her nose and make the situation better?

I took the pot, carried it outside,  GAGGING all the way and dumped it in the burn pile.  Second dumb move because now the stench could roam freely.  The stench roamed all over the neighborhood.

I washed my hands, for about 25 minutes and went to the supper exchange.  SO, I meet five woman for the first time at a supper exchange and I have no suppers to give because my soup was rancid.  Oh, and did I mention that I was afraid that maybe they were making meals, that were not rancid, in a less than 100 sanitation graded kitchen?  What a LOUSY first impression.  And worse than all of that, I handled it poorly because I was just so out of sorts.


The "button" told me that he is embarrassed, feels like he handled the situation so poorly and that people he has never met, but will meet some day, will judge him.  I couldn't help but think of him while I stood in her kitchen with those other woman because I felt so humiliated and akward. 

At least he never made rancid chicken noodle soup for a supper exchange.

P.S.  It was the pot, we had cooked clams in it and I didn't know that when I made the soup.