A Community that Cooks Together, Eats Together

Sustainable Wallingford’s Rachel Duboff invites us all to the Wallingford Community Kitchen Holiday Celebration at the Good Shepherd Center, Friday, November 19th from 5:30-9pm.

Rachel’s announcement says:

“We will be making a communal soup and baking/decorating cookies; we cook as a community and then enjoy the bounties of our labor by sitting down to share a meal. This event is a little different, we ask that you bring an ingredient for the soup pot, along with a dish to share with the group – an appetizer, salad, side dish or drink (please no bread products as we receive those by donation). We’ll get creative and come up with 2, 3, 4 soups – depending on what shows up and how many people come. We will have spices available and will plan this is a vegetarian meal, so no meat products please.”

This community soup event reminds me of the “burgoo” we used to make in my mid-western hometown.  Every August the residents of Scott County, Illinois brought vegetables from their farms and gardens:  tomatoes, corn, lima beans, etc.  They dumped those ingredients (including chicken, pork, squirrel) into a big wood-fired cauldron in the local park and let it simmer for a few days.  The result was a little  different every year, but it always tasted like burgoo — a community soup made by and for neighbors.

Unlike the aforementioned burgoo, Wallingford’s community soup is vegetarian.  It is cooked indoors and in just one evening.  Expected ingredients include lentils, pre-cooked hearty beans, cabbage, carrots, celery, corn, cream, green beans, kale, onions, peas, rice, squash, swiss chard, zucchini and the like.  To avoid too much duplication, check out the Sustainable Wallingford website to sign up for ingredients you’d like to donate.  Be sure to take some reusable containers for leftovers.

And finally, the Wallingford Community Senior Center is low on reusable containers; they’d love have any spares you’re willing to leave with them.

More info & RSVP here.