Stone Soup

As a gardener, who always plants too much and loves to share, I have dreamed of creating stone soup.  You know the old tale, the people come to the village and get the villagers to work together to make enough soup for all to share.  That stone soup.  I always wanted to have people come together with bits of their garden and we put things in a pot to boil and become beautiful soup.  I just thought it was such a novel concept and a wonderful way to bring the community together.

Two weeks ago, a woman I met at the community center invited me to a gathering in the park put on by a "child-raising group."  Unfortunately, the first week it was rained out and they didn't meet.  But this week they did and we were able to join the gathering.  The group, Piyo-Piyo, meets regularly in the park for family activities.  Today's gathering was to make soup!

Each person brought a vegetable to put in the pot, bowls, and ¥200 per family.  When we first arrived, the 2 staff members were putting out some toys.  For example, they stretched out a rope net between trees for the kids to climb on, built a ramp for rolling acorns down, and put some toys in the sand box.  They built a fire pit out of bricks and sticks, and put some wire racks on top along with 2 large pots. 

The leaders welcomed everyone and informed us that we were making pumpkin soup.  They would use smashed pumpkin, soy milk, and dashi (fish broth) as the base.

The children played and enjoyed the beautiful weather we had today.  The shady areas had some mud, which made some children very happy.  My son wanted to run up and down the grassy hills with some newly made friends.  He also really enjoyed climbing on the net and in the trees, as well as rolling the acorns down the shoots.

Once the water boiled, everyone was called over to cut up their vegetable.  There were peelers and knives, as well as cutting boards made from flattened milk cartons, for everyone to use.  It was encouraged to work with your child to cut the vegetable.  Since my son helps in the kitchen regularly, I was happy to let him peel the carrot we brought by himself and then we worked together to cut it up.  Other families brought onions, carrots, eggplant, sweet potato, bell peppers, and more.  I loved seeing the variety!  Once it was diced, we took it over to the pot and tossed it in.  Then we went back to playing. 

After a while, we were told that the soup was ready.  Everybody brought their bowls over and the staff served the soup.  There were large tarps set out to sit on.  Makeshift tables were made with children's chairs and long boards.  We sat with our new friends and enjoyed the soup.  We also brought some onigiri (rice balls) for ourselves to round out our lunch.

When we were all seated, I looked around and saw that there were at least 40-50 families at this gathering.  What a wonderful way to spend the day with our new community!

Later, we came home to receive deliveries of living room shelves and a kitchen cupboard.  Then we received another surprise - one of the Piyo-Piyo staff members from today's activity is our neighbor!  Such a great day for building community and receiving gifts.