Real Soup

It is an urgent season.

Dawn, so brutal on the weekends, is ushered in with choruses of jubilant bird-city music and a glowing cleft moon.

We are on the butterfly circuit. For days, monarchs have been fluttering by, northward, full of insect geography and sun angles and a high sense of purpose.

There is fresh dirt in the yard, and a lawn chair positioned beside it. This is where I sit next to my proposed work. Where the tension between ambition and indolence distracts me from both.

Truly, I want to loll and bask.

From here I am browsed by a dandilion seed, like a tiny aviator, buoyant on the smallest breeze, it scans my contours for a promising place to land, rejects me for breathing and cruises on toward the open sagebrush, looking for home.

Work requires such a strong elusive mood. Somehow the red dust makes it impossible. Or perhaps it is the pollen count, or the expedient mood of the migrants all around me. It could just be the cloudy, indecisive sky and the hesitant, gaining warmth of the sun.

I have gotten much better at laziness in Springtime since I realized that if I can manage it long enough, eventually it becomes too late to get those things started which will ultimately create more work during the Summer and Fall anyway. Thus my inertia is actually an efficient time saving strategy.

All of that discretionary time can then be devoted to the personal practice of entropy, or to the study of changes in light and air as the day proceeds, to the observation of lava, how it glitters, or just to listening to the webwork of bird sounds over the clover.

Worthy pursuits.

Such exercizes enjoy company and refreshments. Good sound reasons for the first picnic of the year, that quiet, fervent festival outdoors, with one's favorite friends.

Chicken Wraps can be made without interrupting one's loafing, provided you start early, which fills the house with lovely, satisfying aromas at odd hours. This is good.

Note that this recipe is made with phyllo (filo) dough, which is found in long skinny boxes in the frozen food section of the market. It requires overnight thawing in the refrigerator, then two hours at room temperature to be workable. (Leftover dough, tightly wrapped, keeps in the fridge for weeks.)

Early in the day or a day ahead of schedule, preheat the oven to 375. Bring phyllo to room temperature in the box.

Note the weight, round it off, and prepare for baking:

1 large, whole roasting chicken

Peel and slice:

5-6 cloves garlic

Stick them under the skin of the chicken wherever you can, especially on the breast. Sprinkle the skin with lemon juice, cumin, chili powder, and pepper in proportions that suit you. These will tenderize and add flavor.

Put the used lemon half into the cavity and sprinkle salt in there, too. You can put onion and celery in there if you have them handy. This is a good way to use limp stuff.

When the oven is fully heated, slip the chicken in, breast down in the skillet, on a rack if possible. This keeps the juices where you want them, and gives the fat the opportunity to drain off.

Turn the heat down to 350 and bake for 20 minutes to the pound.

Now enjoy yourself.You are accomplishing something while doing nothing.

Check it for doneness. Clear juice and no pink. Loose legs.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Another opportunity to take it easy.

When you are ready to assemble, pull the skin off the chicken, and discard. Then, using a fork or your hands, take the meat off the bones thoroughly and set aside, along with:

2-3 C. grated cheddar and/or pepper jack cheese

3-4 green onions, finely chopped

1 small can sliced black olives

1 small can chopped mild green chilies

Open:

1 box phyllo dough

and spread it out on a large workspace. Get a dishtowel wet and squeeze it very dry, then drape it over the dough to prevent it from drying out during this process. Better yet, use a heavy piece of plastic - a garbage sack will do - to cover and protect the pastry.

Melt:

1/2-3/4 C. butter, not margarine

Here is my easy method. Remove one sheet of dough from the stack. Using a pastry brush, spread butter on one half the sheet and fold the other half over the top of it so that you have two layers. Now brush butter onto this and you have the right size of pastry, substantial enough with three layers to hold the filling.

Close to one end, place a scant 1/4 C. chicken, 3 T. cheese, some green onion, scallions, chilies. Commandeer help from the children for this if you can. They do it well and often with the necessary zeal.

Fold it to enclose the filling completely; start at the end with the filling and fold 1/2" dough over the chicken, widthwise. Roll the filling over once. Now all the way down the length of the sheet, fold the sides in, so it looks tidy. Roll the filling down to the end. It's like wrapping a small package.

Place seam side down on lightly buttered baking sheet. Brush the top.

If you are really working ahead, you can stop here and refrigerate or freeze the Chicken Wraps for later baking.

If you are ready to get started, preheat the oven to 400.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.

Serve with condiments such as salsa, hot hot sauce, fresh tomatoes, guacamole, shredded lettuce, enchilada sauce, refried beans.

If you are going to take them traveling, wrap them loosely in paper rather than plastic after they are cool, to preserve the nice crisp crunch of the pastry.

Yes. Well, that actually was a lot of trouble, wasn't it. This is a big problem with leisure time and the capricious mentality of lazy people