Good Stuff from Joan Eisenstodt

It's that time of the year when, with Thanksgiving in the US approaching, we turn our thoughts to ...fowl ... for which I have a great fondness.

I'm a pretty discerning consumer of turkey and chicken in particular.  When I'm told that my club sandwich will have turkey on it, I always ask if it's real turkey (sliced off a bird) or turkey roll.  You know, I've never had someone tell the truth!  I guess like those who go to Vegas to New York, New York and think they've been in the real Big Apple, people just don't know the real thing.

So why write this now, eh?

Well, it's the week before the US holiday and I just had amazing chicken noodle soup at the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, AZ. (I'll review it this weekend after the Friday meeting.)  

Amazing because it had real chicken in it - not those little cubes of ersatz chicken.  Real, honest-to-goodness chicken that flavored the soup.

You wee, my maternal great-grandfather founded a poultry company in Dayton, Ohio.  When I was 14, I began working in the stores and could, at that time, tell you all you wanted to know about chicken and turkey and their 'parts, and eggs, and oleo and more.  I've forgotten some of that knowledge but I do know what the real stuff is.  (This all explains why my cousins sent me the wonderful PBS video, "The Natural History of Chicken" - one that I highly recommend.)  But I digress....

To start my Thanksgiving gratitude list .. on a lighter note than it may become .. I am grateful for the Hotel Valley Ho's real chicken soup.