Sippin' once, sippin' twice, sippin' chicken soup with... spaetzle?

I went to the doctor this morning to do all the usual things plus get a flu shot. That took me over into a neighborhood where I never go anymore and in that neighborhood is a Bruegger's. I used to eat at Bruegger's all the time-- there's one not too far from the old office. But now I'm never near one. And I remembered-- they have good soup.

(Oh, BTW, my doctor verified that I did have a horrible ear infection last November-- so bad that he put me on steroids. That was the last time I had a bad cold and THAT is the bad cold I hope will be halted in its little tracks by eating all this soup.)

So the Bruegger's soup I chose was Chicken Spaetzle.

My father goes on about spaetzle sometimes, but I don't know if I've ever had authentic spaetzle. I don't remember my German grandmother-- his mother-- making it. She liked fine dining. I think it must have been his father's mother who used to make spaetzle-- my great grandmother.

These spaetzle were buttery little dumplings. And they were good. The other thing I liked about this soup was that there was both diced and shredded chicken in it. The broth was not as thick as other chicken noodle-type soups (although you can't tell in my masterful photo), but the shredded chicken gave it body.

The odd thing was this-- all the way from Bruegger's to the office I thought I had made a mistake and would hate this soup. Maybe it was because the lab had just drawn a bunch of blood from me, but the soup had a strong vegetable scent that was making me a little woozy.

But one taste was all it took to cure me of that and then I practically inhaled it. I think it did have a vegetable stock base, but there was enough chickeny goodness in there to mask the flavor-- but not the scent.

This was the first chicken soup I've found on my quest that could pass for homemade-- so I have to give it credit for that-- it's homey. But I hate vegetable stock. If I can't use chicken stock in a recipe for some reason, I'll use water before vegetable stock. So I have to grade it down for that.

So I'm giving it 1 point for comfort and satisfaction. Maybe it would be 2 points on a day when I hadn't just had needles :). I'll give it 3 for nutrition because I think there were some cruciferous vegetables in its background somewhere. So 4 out of 8.

I paid $2.99 for this bowl of soup.