Oh, and speaking of Patti, here's her mother's chicken soup recipe:
Get yourself one big, sweet juicy bird. Wash her inside and out including the giblets. Fill up a big pot with cold, clean water, and put the bird and the giblets in. Let her cook, skimming off all that junk that rises to the top. While she's cooking, open up a couple of big cans of Italian peeled tomatoes. You are going to use the liquid as well. Chop up an onion, celery, carrots, and peel a lot of garlic (leave the cloves whole). When the bird is cooked through, take it out, let it cool and then pull the chicken off the bone with your hands. Use your hands to create a masterful chicken soup. Put that chicken meat back into the pot with all of your veggies and the cans of Italian peeled tomatoes (hand crush those tomatoes into the soup). Add salt and pepper and fresh Italian flat leaf parsley. Cook it up, eat it, yum, yum, yum.
You can add shell pasta or rice (cooked separately).
