News has belatedly reached me of a friend and colleague's recent cancer diagnosis. It was caught very early but that does not lessen how rough the chemotherapy is. To offer a small bit of support to JaMese and her family, I fixed up another batch of the Vierling Saloon chicken and wild rice soup to take to their house on New Year's Eve. I hope it fit the bill that evening. Fortunately, it also made enough to serve out some for supper here that night.
I bought the Roediger House in October 2003 and, thanks to an outlet mall trip to Carolina Pottery in Smithfield with my mom that fall, I got a 9-foot Christmas tree and a lot of beautiful ornaments. As I wrapped up my fifth semester on faculty at Wake Forest University, I invited JaMese and her husband Rico, along with Paula (who'd been a masters student with me the previous year), over for a pot of that soup and for a tree decorating party. I did not take any pictures of our tree-trimming in action—although boy-howdy I wish I had. But the finished result was as shown above, taken with my sad little digital camera on 13 December 2003, in that big empty South Parlour where you can still see a lot of the old wallpaper remained, in tatters. But what a gorgeous tree that year, all the more so because of the warm and wonderful evening we all had. Rico let me know that 18 years was a long time to wait for another round of that soup.
"Vierling Saloon Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup," formerly offered at the Vierling Saloon in Marquette, Michigan. This was first shared with me by my sister Allison Holden and her husband Tom, from Rossville, Indiana. Another online version of the recipe can be found at Miss Mary's Blog.
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