This Former High School Bully Has the Best One-Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup Recipe

Liz Lydic
The Haven
Published in
4 min readMay 21, 2023
Photo by kyo azuma on Unsplash

Wow, Jasmine, that spinach dip looks amazing. Did u buy?

No, Sabrina, I actually made! Can you believe it?

No, I cannot! You are literally the girl that could do nothing but copy off papers and make fun of my shoes. Now u r making food that looks like it comes from a magazine?!??!

OMG Sab you have such a good memory! I do remember that time you had those shoes — was it off-brand Nikes? — and I gave you just a little bit of a hard time. Now I bake my own snickerdoodles from scratch and post the pics here. Blessed!

Wow, Jazz! Those cookies look incredible, how do you get that golden color? That reminds me, it wasn’t just a little bit of a hard time with the shoes thing. You told the entire school that I was so ugly that I would have to marry my cousin Trevor and then have his kids and they would have two heads. You also said my family was poor and that we ate our cat for dinner one night because we couldn’t afford food. You put up a flyer in the bathrooms that told students to lock up their pets because Sabrina Gipperth’s family would steal them and eat them.

Sabrina, yes! I turn up the heat on the cookies by 10 degrees but only for about 2 minutes at the end of baking. You have to be so careful not to overshoot or they will brown instead of getting that nice color that you noticed. It took me a lot of trial and error to figure that out, but that’s what I love about cooking and sharing with my followers. I’m so grateful to be able to do this! By the way, I always thought Trevor was kinda cute :)

Real quick, that chicken tortilla soup recipe you posted last week? Did u add the lime when you sauteed the onions, or squeezed at the end, before you served? Speaking of squeezed, do you remember when you walked up to me in front of my locker, pulled up my shirt and said “Not enough to squeeze” and made me cry?

LOL yes! The good old days, right?!? So, yeah, I do squeeze the lemon in both with the onions sauteeing AND right before serving, in each bowl. That’s my little secret touch!

Oh, is that like the secret touch you gave to my boyfriend under the bleachers after the game against East High, and then when I confronted you, you spread that rumor that I was a virgin?

Exactly! Aw man, we were so young back then! What a ride. Oh, and also for the onions, let them get just a tiny glaze — right before they look burnt — before you add the rest of the ingredients.

Cool about the onions! Speaking of rides, remember when you said your brother could give me a ride home from our softball practice that day, and then the two of you pulled up to me on the curb and then right when I was about to open the door to get in, you peeled out and splashed me with the gutter water and everyone saw? And then I had to walk 3 miles home?

Wow, yes, I do remember that. Speaking of splashing, do be careful when you add the chunks of chicken to the full pot; sometimes I go a little too fast and end up with a mess!

Oh, do you mean like the mess you made when you invited yourself over to my house with a bunch of your asshole friends and then one of you got your period in my parent’s bed and didn’t tell me and then left it there and then they came home and thought it was me and I got grounded both for menstruating and also for using their bed, even though neither thing was true about me?

Yes, that’s right! That’s such a wild memory! Reminds me, try making your own ground cumin, if you can, from roasting larger seeds, then food processing them until they are powder. Of course, ok to buy from store, but I LOVE the way the homemade stuff tastes!

Oh, did you love the way Scott tasted under the bleachers that night? By the way, and I know you and your dumb friends probably already laughed about this, but he broke up with me the next day. So, not only did you hook up with my boyfriend, and spread the virgin rumor about me, but also got him to leave me. Great job! I hope your followers know how ‘AMAZING’ you are now!

Thanks girl! Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel (or I might have to post on my Instagram that picture of you the day I pantsed you when you were wearing those granny panties!)

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Liz Lydic
The Haven

Liz Lydic is a mom, writer, and local government employee in the Los Angeles area. She also does theatre stuff.