Ingredients

• 1 small bag wood ears 

  • Cut fresh from dryad-inhabited tree. Seek out a beautiful tree in the forest. You can tell it’s a dryad home by the especially seductive blossoms on eye-level branches. You may suddenly feel nostalgic for loves lost. This means you’ve found a dryad. Extreme caution advised: these ladies have been combat trained by Artemis.

  • Remove excess wax, veins, etc.

  • Be sure to wash away any blood as it may inflame egg blood (see below)

  • DO NOT SLICE, or hearing will be impaired. It’s imperative to avoid miscommunication.

• 1/2 lb chicken feet, boiled, skinned and declawed

• 2 tbsp soy sauce 

• 1/4 tsp ground white pepper 

• 2 tsp Shaoxing wine 

• 4 cups animal broth

• 1/2 cup bamboo shoots, sliced 

• 1 bloody egg, beaten

• 3-4 tbsp black vinegar 

• 3 tbsp cornstarch mixed with water to slurry

• 1 tsp sesame oil 

• 2 wild scallions, chopped

• chili oil to taste

Preparation

1. Set cleaned, whole wood ears aside.

2. In mixing bowl, combine prepared chicken feet with soy sauce, white pepper, Shaoxing wine, cornstarch slurry, chili oil (for speed), and one wild scallion. Mix until feet wrinkle. Set aside.

3. Place animal broth in deep saucepan or wok; cover and bring to boil.

4. Add wood ears, bamboo shoots, wrinkled chicken feet with liquid.

5. Stir in black vinegar and cook until sauce thickens. It is normal to think you may have seen a shadow at this juncture.

6. Reduce heat. 

7. Stir in bloody, beaten egg and sesame oil. 

8. Pour into tureen; sprinkle chopped wild scallion on top.

   Serve hot. 

   Note to Consumer:

   Before eating, hold your deepest, darkest fear clearly in mind. Concentrate on what it would be like to truly live that fear. Then, lean close over your tureen of Listening Soup. Deeply inhale dark vapors and whisper this fear into a wood ear in the broth. It will listen carefully and hold this fear especially for you. 

   Bonus Fortune:

   Life changing events are in your future.

   Calories: 254 cals per 12 oz. tureen. People often burn more calories after, rather than during, consumption.

Note to Exposure Therapy Provider:

Expect immersion event roughly 24–72 hours after consumption. In cases of therapeutic resistance, event will engage in chili-hot, chicken-footed pursuit of client. If client survives, phobia is cured. If not, the condition was probably untreatable.

Remove this section at perforation before prescribing.