For years my children’s friends thought we were witches. Why? Because we collected chicken bones by the gallon size ziploc and strung herbs over the kitchen sink to dry. What they didn’t know, at the time, was that these were the makings of magic.

I must confess that I do not cook. I was raised in a family that only cooked from mixes. I never know banana bread had real bananas in it until I was married. I know that’s a terrible confession to make, but it’s the truth. My husband, on the other hand, was raised by a southern woman with a great passion for the palette and her mother before her. The first few years of our marriage, they all attempted to change me. My dear mother-in-law, whom I love with all my heart, would bring me starter bags of sweet breads and other mouthewatering delicacies that would regularly end up swirling in the ceiling fan when my swedish temper got the better of me, and I would throw said starter bag in frustration because nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, ever turned out the way it was supposed to. Admittedly, it was frustrating for all involved, and I was too stubborn for my own good, but we made it through the first ten years of marriage, with four kids under seven, and no one starved to death. And then a glorious day came.

My husband’s job came home, and mine went out into the world. Suddenly, he had the freedom to work from home two to three days a week, and I was offered a part time writing gig that allowed me to travel outside of our home where I had been a stay at home mom for the previous ten years.

This was blissful for both of us. My husband got to spend more time with the kids, I had a chance to find myself again, and the kids had a new taste of parenting and raising a family in today’s world. The best part of the new arrangement ? My husband decided, I’m convinced out of sheer self preservation, to start to cook our evening meals. At first they were simple, and then he began to experiment. As the kids got older and food needed to come in Army sized quantities, he discovered the soup pot. Ah, the bliss.

You see, in his world, chicken soup soothed the soul, but only if it was made with every ounce of love your body could hold, real dried herbs, and the bones of a chicken. I loved chicken soup, but never more than when I was sick. One fateful winter, we all came down with a stomach bug, and nothing could soothe out bellies until the soup pot appeared.

The smell of bones simmering mixed with glorious home-grown spices did something to each of us. It touched our hearts and made our mouths water. The broth – the savory, homemade, delictable broth that came from that pot connected us to each other in a way nothing else could. And we ate it. And we drank it. And we savored it, and we were healed.

Our kids friends still think we are witches, but now they know what that glorious pot means and they react from a mile away when they smell the pot simmering. It would be an exaggeration to say they line up at our door, but not so much that they turn up in cars with bowls in hand, asking if the bones are simmering.

These young men, virile and strong, regularly ate store-bought rottesserie chickens and learned the value of bringing my husband a bag of bones. A pound of pasta, a few stray carrots and scraps of chicken from last night’s meal were welcomed too. They know what these would become.

Generations from now, I’d like to think that these young men will remember the soup pot that overflowed with love and the bones of all their store bought chickens waiting in my freezer.

And I promise you, each and every one of them, knows that there are real bananas in banana bread; and you can get day old bananas at the corner store for pennies. Amazing what our stomachs can teach us!