Inspiration is What You are to Me, Inspiration, Look See

Summer Chicken & Rice Soup with Zucchini and Corn.  In so many ways this soup is such a page out of my personal history.  The ingredients are borrowed from my mom's Mexican casserole she used to make at home before the family restaurant.  Those recipes were the secret stash, the real deal she learned from her mother in law, the good stuff. That dish had silky goodness and the melding of the flavors straight into the rice and small chunks of corn on the cob.  Too good!  I have never come in contact with any Mexican food like my mother made at home.  There was not one taco or burrito in the joint.  

Corn always brings me back to my Indiana roots too and all the endless fields.  Driving through them, parking in them, tucked into a little spot or getting stoned and just driving in endless giant squares on the dark two lanes while sipping beers with friends.  The giant corn stalks were these natural walls to isolate us.  We were left only with our thoughts, ideas, jokes and each other.  That nothingness was a place you could go and I loved going there often.  So heavenly on a cold winter's night.  Crank the heat and drive.  So many nights we just drove until the sun came up

Zucchini, tomatoes and cilantro together are so perfect in a summer soup too.  I wonder if parts of my mother's and grandmother's history was in her soups and stews as well?