Making Memories with Soup

February 10, 2011

When it's cold outside, it's time for a little comfort.

For some people that means hot chocolate, for other that means hot soup. Maybe, you feel the urge to bake some bread. Maybe, all you need is to simply look at some pictures of bread! Well, for either urge, all you need to do is think ahead now and prepare your Winter Emergency Kit. What's that, you ask? It's simple, fun items to get you through a snowy couple of days. Books and other things you enjoy but don't want to run out to get. Think ahead a bit...Come to the library and stock up on some cookbooks. Not only are they fun to look at-for you non-cooks...they are actually useful. (Imagine!)

Try Baking Artisan Bread: 10 Expert Formulas for Baking Better Bread at Home by Ciril Hitz. Perhaps you would like Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Experimenting with some of their recipes would be a fun way to spend a snowed in Sunday afternoon. Think of the deliciously yeasty aroma and satisfying results.

An idea for keeping the kids busy when the wind chill is around zero is to drag out your Winter Emergency Kit. You probably picked up some good soup cookbooks like Soup's On! by Leslie Jonath, then you added the classic children's book, Stone Soup. Ah, do you sense a theme yet? And of course, you've pre-stocked your kitchen with loads of uh....soup stuff. Then, when the kids are over the top, you simply announce that it's Soup Day...and drum roll here...they get to help!

So, you pull Stone Soup out of your kit, gather the kids, read the story, and then everyone happily works together making soup that afternoon. Soup is not the only thing getting made that day...memories of a good story on a snowy day will stick with them forever.

Rox P.
North Independence Branch