By Election day was Tuesday. Local elections this year — school board, town selectmen, the ballot questions that Vermont puts to its citizens every few years on matters of roads and budgets and zoning. I voted first thing in the morning, as I always do, as my father always did. The Hinesburg polling place is a church community room. I have been voting there since 1973. The same woman has been checking names off the voter roll for the last fifteen years. We do not know each other's names. We know each other's faces. In Vermont, this is a form of community.
The leaves are fully down now. The landscape has gone from its October performance to its November reality: brown and gray and exact. The maples along the fence stand in their winter architecture, and I can see all the way through the woods to the property line in a way that July's canopy wouldn't allow. I prefer this visibility. I like to know exactly what is there.
Helen made chicken soup this week — real chicken soup, with a whole bird poached low for two hours, the broth skimmed and strained, the meat returned to the pot with egg noodles and carrots and parsley. The soup is not a recipe in any ambitious sense. It is what soup has always been: the healing food, the getting-through-November food, the food that answers the question of what the cold dark asks of you. Helen has made this soup every November since before I married her. I have been eating it every November since 1978. The answer has never changed. The soup is always the answer.
The woodpile is full and stacked. The sugarhouse is inventoried and locked. The cellar is full. November has arrived and I am prepared for it and it is fine. It is always fine. I keep knowing this. I keep needing to be reminded.
Helen’s soup this week was, as it always is, the thing that made November make sense — and when I sat down to write this, I wanted to leave something behind that came close to what she makes. The chicken and wild rice version here is a natural companion to what came out of her pot: built low and slow, honest about what it is, the kind of soup that asks nothing of you except that you eat it warm. It is not the same as hers. Nothing is the same as hers. But it is in the same family, and on a gray Tuesday in November after the polls close, family is enough.
Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 50 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs
- 1 cup wild rice blend, rinsed
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
- 3 stalks celery, sliced
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 cups water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
Instructions
- Sauté aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook 5–7 minutes until softened. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
- Add broth and chicken. Pour in chicken broth and water. Add chicken breasts or thighs whole, along with thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf. Bring to a gentle boil.
- Simmer the chicken. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken to a cutting board and let rest.
- Cook the rice. Add rinsed wild rice blend to the simmering broth. Cover and cook over low heat for 25–30 minutes, until rice is tender but not mushy.
- Shred and return. Shred or chop the rested chicken into bite-sized pieces and return to the pot. Discard the bay leaf.
- Season and finish. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Stir in fresh parsley. Simmer 5 minutes more to bring everything together, then serve hot.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 310 | Protein: 32g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 520mg