The story of "stone soup" exists all over the world. In my favorite variation, a hungry traveler appears in a village with nothing but an empty cooking pot, a spoon, and his appetite. When the suspicious villagers will not show him any hospitality, he sets up his cooking pot in the village square and begins to boil water with a simple stone in it. As the curious townsfolk pass by and ask him what he is doing, he stirs the pot and tells them that he is making stone soup. Further, he explains that at the end of the day when the soup is ready, everyone will be welcome to come and share it with him. Eventually, one person ventures that the soup might taste better with a few onions. Soon the villagers are each bringing a couple of carrots, a potato, a little salt, whatever they have on hand to add to the stone soup. At the end of the day, the whole town shares a delicious pot of soup (minus the stone, of course), and they have also learned a valuable lesson about the joys of shari...
Good morning! Welcome to summer, a month early. It would have been nice to have a little more spring first, but... Recently several people have asked for information about our wonderful cookie bakers, so I'd like to profile them this week. Our friend Laurie S coordinates all of the bakers, who sign up when they want to, with no obligations for baking more than they want. Laurie has an online system for sign ups, and people who've chosen to bake that week bring their cookies to her house on Friday or early Saturday, and she packages them up safely in boxes for us and drops them off to the pantry. This is a great way to volunteer with us for people who prefer to be behind-the-scenes, so to speak. We absolutely adore our bakers, who bring such joy to our guests at the pantry and sometimes at the dinners too! I've told this story before, but for those who are new to our mailing list, we've had people actually cry when they learn that they are receiving homemade ...