Happy Once, Happy Twice: Make Mondays Nice with Soup
I believe every day is a gift, but I dread Mondays. I know God created light on Monday. Time magazine tells me CEOs get up at 5 am to work out and plan their very successful week over French press coffee and Vitamix green juice.
Job coaches tell me I must hate my job, which is untrue. I blame my mother for this malady. Easy target, I know. On Monday school mornings, before my feet hit the shag carpeting, she had vacuumed the house; washed, dried, and folded two loads of laundry; made breakfast and sack lunches for four children; sent our father, an Air Force pilot, off to work or war (the same thing); showered, applied her makeup and coifed her hair so perfectly she could have gone on morning television. God had nothing on her.
Though I gave up on reaching that level of domestic perfection long ago, I now use Mondays for bread and soup making. Sourdough starter is fed on Sunday nights, so the bubbly fermented goo is ready for a fresh loaf by morning. Deadlines are set aside for later in the week, and my attention turns to clearing the crisper of flimsy but still edible vegetables. Bins of onions with curly green tendrils and potatoes with too many eyes are culled and made ready for tossing into the soup pot. I might have homemade stock stored in the freezer, but only in a perfect world with no Mondays would I shun store-bought broth.
Why soup? My favorite food writer, Laurie Colwin, who tragically left this world far too early, wrote in Home Cooking, A Writer’s Kitchen (Harper Collins, 1988), wrote: “Soup is by its nature eccentric: no two are ever alike unless, of course, you get your soup from cans. Soup embraces variety.” Each Monday, the soup is different, making the day a little bit more tolerable. Though I could live on my Greek grandfather’s Avgolemono (chicken soup with rice, lemon, and eggs), other compilations are in my soup rotation, like a sausage, tortellini soup dressed up with zucchini, sweet peppers, baby greens, or a vegetarian potage of fennel with artichokes and fresh basil.
Soup is consoling, Colwin writes. She recounts her Great Aunt Julia Rice ladling soup from a silver punch bowl into punch cups for streetcar conductors on old Fifth Avenue during snowstorms. Any other food wouldn’t do in the same scenario.
Soup is also the food of childhood. At an exhibit of Maurice Sendak at the Denver Art Museum, I was transcended to a time when chicken soup was my teenage console. While watching my four grandkids sing and sway to a video of Carol King’s Chicken Soup with Rice video, I was reminded of how that song and So Far Away were my 1970s soundtracks when the Air Force reassigned my family of six, five times in five years to a new duty station.
Whether a 6-month, one-year, or two-year stint, Mom packed our household goods without complaint. Though I’d learned the military way not to ask questions, I wasn’t as compliant. Every day felt like Monday as I packed up mementos of movie and concert ticket stubs, albums, and Polaroid photos of friends who seemed too new to be already called old friends. Grooves were deeply etched in the vinyl tracks of King’s albums as I played them over and again. “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? It would be so fine to see your face at my door.”
Mom’s early morning sprees set the cadence for a quick settling-in with pictures on the wall, curtains hung, dishes in the cupboard, and food on the table. Campbell’s chicken soup with buttered saltines soothed our uprooted souls. No matter the place, the boxes were gone within a few weeks of moving in, which helped make Monday mornings at a new school feel a little less scary. Happy once, happy twice. Happy chicken soup with rice.
Politically, the world was a hurricane. Our family was never sure when to duck as we witnessed whatever form of mistrust and hostility clouded each place. Without fail, behind the safety of our front door, every new address was immediately called home. Other military families immediately became our family, with weekly game nights and potluck dinners at our kitchen table.
2025 is feeling a lot like 1975. Sadly, what divides us has become the soup of the day. Though chicken soup won’t cure everything, bowls filled with hot soup and a loaf of freshly baked bread could help someone you know get through their own Monday, whatever day that happens to be.
Click over for Monday’s Chicken Soup recipe in honor of King, Sendak, and Monday Morning Moms like mine.
Chicken Soup with Rice Lyrics
By Carol King
In January, it’s so nice
While slipping on the sliding ice
To sip hot chicken soup with rice
Sipping once, sipping twice
Sipping chicken soup with rice
In February, it will be
My snowman’s anniversary
With cake for him and soup for me
Happy once, happy twice
Happy chicken soup with rice
In March, the wind blows down the door
And spills my soup upon the floor
It laps it up and roars for more
Blowing once, blowing twice
Blowing chicken soup with rice
In April, I will go away
To far off Spain or old Bombay
And dream about hot soup all day
Oh my, once, oh my, twice
Oh my, oh, chicken soup with rice
In May, I truly think it best
To be a robin lightly dressed
Concocting soup inside my nest
Mix it once, mix it twice
Mix that chicken soup with rice
In June, I saw a charming group
Of roses all begin to droop
I pepped them up with chicken soup
Sprinkle once, sprinkle twice
Sprinkle chicken soup with rice
In July, I’ll take a peep
Into the cool and fishy deep
Where chicken soup is selling cheap
Selling once, selling twice
Selling chicken soup with rice
In August, it will be so hot
I will become a cooking pot
Cooking soup of course, why not?
Cooking once, cooking twice
Cooking chicken soup with rice
In September, for a while (in September, for a while)
I will ride a crocodile (I will ride a crocodile)
Down the chicken soupy Nile
Paddle once, paddle twice
Paddle chicken soup with rice
In October, I’ll be host
To witches, goblins and a ghost
I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast
Whoopy once, whoopy twice
Whoopy chicken soup with rice
In November’s gusty gale, I will flop my flippy tail
And spout hot soup, I’ll be a whale
Spouting once, spouting twice
Spouting chicken soup with rice
In December, I will be
A baubled, bangled Christmas tree
With soup bowls draped all over me
Merry once, merry twice
Merry chicken soup with
Merry chicken soup with
Merry chicken soup with riceI told you once, I told you twice
All seasons of the year are nice
For eating chicken soup
Eating chicken soup with rice
