I love love love this soup!

Obviously I am on a food, and specifically soup, kick lately. OMG, this was so yummy it makes my mouth water just posting this! :)

It reminds me of home and mom and how great a cook she is. My mom is a natural. She can taste something and figure out ingredients and make it. You have to know that my mom speaks just a little English. She did not grow up here. She has never taken a cooking class. She has NO recipes written down. If you want to learn something, you will need to follow her around as she cooks and ask and write. She loves making food I think. Perhaps this is how she expresses herself best. I know one thing and that is, when she wants to show you how happy or proud she is of something special you have done, she makes you your all time favorite dishes. It makes you feel really special. When I was young, I use think that you had to verbalize how you felt in order for someone to know how you feel about them or about whatever. Over the years, I realize that some of us can better express ourselves in non-verbal ways. Don't know why I'm thinking of all this. It wasn't at all what I had intended to write but there you go.

Here are some (just a few!) of my favorites from mom:

• Wonton soup. To die for. The meat filling for the wonton includes ground pork AND chicken, scallions, shittake and seasoning. The broth is wonderful -- light in color and in taste. She also includes red onions, fresh scallions, cilantro, shrimp and thinly sliced Chinese pork barbecue as toppings. When we visit, she has a bowl ready for us. Then as we are driving out of FL and back to TX, she has a farewell bowl for us. What a woman!
• Banh Bao (I may be butchering my language here). These are the soft, white, round buns that have a meat & egg filling. YUM. You steam them. When we go, she almost always has some or we make some together and she sends like a dozen home with us. But I can eat that in a few days though I don't! I have to savor each as if it is the last. I'm drooling...
• Boneless stuff chicken. Where to begin on this one. She made this for me when I graduated from high school and again after college and then grad school. Oh and for a wedding meal. She debones a whole chicken and stuffs it with a filling of ground chicken and pork. Actually, she not only debones it but she pretty much cleans out the meat in the center part of the chicken. Torso? She leaves the two wings and legs. Anyway, she takes that meat and combines it with ground pork, scallions, all her seasonings (nothing too fancy or exotic) and then she sews it back up and bakes it! You can eat it plain with her homemade butter/mayo (more drooling) or in a sandwich. Wow. It's amazing.

Okay. Now that I have written all of this that was in my head, I am going to get away from the computer for a while and go call my mom! I need to tell her she's on my mind. More later.