My Mother's Recipe for Caldo de Pollo

My mother's recipe has no measurements, only gestures: a palm of salt, a handful meaning however much your hand happens to hold that day, which is not a stable unit of measurement, which is the entire problem with trying to write any of this down. I have tried for years to translate her kitchen into something a stranger could follow, and every time I fail at the exact same place: the moment she tastes the broth and adjusts it by something other than taste, some private arithmetic involving who is coming to dinner, what kind of day everyone has had, whether anyone needs forgiving. You cannot measure that. I have her handwriting on an index card that says simply "hasta que esté bueno," until it's good, and I used to think that was her being imprecise, and now, older, standing in my own kitchen guessing, I understand it was the only honest instruction she ever could have given me.“