Co-chairs of Saturday’s Epworth United Methodist Women’s Bazaar & Luncheon, Barb Young, left, and Carol Peterson, admire this special basket that contains familiar neat and useful things, such as dish towels, knit dish cloths, jellies, pickles, homemade noodles and more. Each person who buys a ticket for the luncheon may put their name and phone number on it for a drawing and some lucky person will be gifted this special gift basket. (Jean Schlegel/VCTR) 

By Jean Schlegel
Valley City Times-Record

Convinced that “sharing’ is what life is all about, Epworth Methodist Church’s big event on Saturday, Oct. 4, is used for mission, says Helen Noeske, longtime member.
She said it encourages the community to celebrate life, and enjoy the beauty of autumn by bringing someone to this annual fall bazaar and luncheon.
Crafts shopping hours are from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., UMW will serve a    “Harvest Blessings” luncheon from tables decorated with handcrafted table runners and autumn arrangements that will be sold from the dining room tables.
The menu includes two choices of soup: Wild Rice or Olive Garden Soup (this is not an official recipe from the Olive Garden restaurant). There will also be hot shredded turkey sandwiches. Crowd-pleasing choices of desserts include “Blue Ribbon Rhubard Custard,” “Chocolate Toffee Crunch” for the chocoholic. A trendy choice of “Classic Cup Cakes” with ice creams. There is also “Crumbly Colorado Peach Pie” and coffee.
Below is the Olive Garden Soup that Epworth’s UMW will serve on Saturday. The recipe comes from Alice Beauchman, who has a little story behind how she started making this soup.
Years ago she and her family ate at the Olive Garden restaurant, and this was one of the only soups her son, Tanner, liked. The family-fine tuned the restaurant’s ingredients and Alice made their own family’s Olive Garden Soup. They have been eating it ever since.

Beauchman’s
Olive Garden Soup
Using a large soup stockpot, to 12 cups of water, add a little salt and ¼ to ½ teaspoon of white pepper. Add 4 ribs of celery, chopped, one medium to large onion, chopped, 30 mini dried carrots, or that equal amount of chopped larger carrots.
Simmer until it is just a little crunchy. Add one to ½ pound of cooked hamburger, one jar of Prego Traditional Italian Spaghetti Sauce, two cans of tomato soup, and a 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes with olive oil, basil and oregano.
If tomatoes are more chunky than you like, they can be chopped. Add ½ package of McCormick Chili Seasoning.
Simmer about one and half hours. Before serving, add seven ounces of small shell macaroni (cooked).
Serve with soft or crispy garlic bread.