“Strawberry” by Lulu De Mallie, 11 (Naples, NY) Published in Stone Soup April 2020 A note from Sarah This week, I wanted to draw your attention to something from the Stone Soup blog that, in my opinion, doesn’t get enough attention: recipes! If you scroll down to the bottom of the newsletter, you’ll see a recipe for fruit crumble posted by our former blogger Sarah Cymrot a few years ago. I’ve tried it myself recently, so I can confirm that it’s a great recipe. I made it with cherries and nectarines, but part of the reason that it appeals to me is that it’s so versatile—you can use whatever summer fruit you’ve got on hand. If you’re also inspired to try out Sarah’s recipe, please leave a comment on her post to let us know how it turned out. We’ve also published issues of the magazine that were food-themed. If you’re looking for recipes for dairy-free apple pie, cream of tomato soup, or matcha crepe cake—look no further! We featured those recipes and more in the December 2018 issue. But on to more recently published work. Did you read the blog post “Cucumbers” by Trevor Shum? Trevor does a great job of describing the characteristics of cucumbers and relating them to his own personality traits. Do you have a fruit or vegetable that you feel you’re most like? Think it over and try to write your own short piece like Trevor’s. And if you happen to be more in the mood for an art project, take a look at Lulu’s photograph of a strawberry above. What strikes me most about the photo is the interesting perspective that Lulu takes. A strawberry plant might be something that you see every day in your yard, but how can you capture it in an interesting way? I like to think of this image as taking the point of view of a bug in the garden. Can you think of any other interesting perspective to take? Till next week, P.S. Don’t forget that poetry submissions for the rest of August are free! Please spread the word and encourage the young poets you know to submit their work. Winners from Weekly Flash Contest #19 Weekly Flash Contest #19: Write a story backwards The week commencing August 3 (Daily Creativity Prompt #96) was our 19th week of flash contests, with a prompt that asked our entrants to write a story that goes backwards. The entries we received covered a broad range of topics, from family to animals to weather to space travel to time travel to friendship, and much more, even including a few poems. We greatly enjoyed reading all of the entries we received, and loved how the plots of the stories were slowly revealed as they traveled backwards. Well done to all of our entrants for taking on the difficult task of telling a story backwards, and particular congratulations to our winners and honorable mentions, listed below. Winners “The Project” by Katie Bergsieker, 12 (Denver, CO) “Surprise” by Scarlet He, 9 (Scarsdale, NY) “Once and For All” by Joyce Hong, 10 (Oakville, ON) “This Day Has Come Too Soon” by Ella Pierce, 12 (Hudson, WI) “Sea of Souls” by Daniel Wei, 13 (Weddington, NC) Honorable Mentions “Jewish Friend, Backwards End” by Becca Jacobson, 11 (Montclair, NJ) “Falling” by Vaishnavi Kumbala, 12 (Metairie, LA) “The Irrefusable Offer” by Kyler Min, 9 (Vienna, VA) “On Top of the World” by Mihika Sakharpe, 11 (Frisco, TX) “Last Thoughts“ by Ismini Vasiloglou, 11 (Atlanta, GA/Athens, Greece) Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Speaking of perspective, Ziva, 9, writes about schools re-opening from the point-of-view of a soccer ball. Ismini, 11, answers one of our Daily Prompts from last week, but situates the story in the present. She writes about her family has been stuck in Greece throughout the pandemic. In “The Silent Threat,” Rex, 11, writes a historical fiction piece about what it might have been like to live during the Spanish Flu. Check out some photographs by Alana-Jain that document Black Lives Matter murals in her town. Devanshi, 13, writes a poem called “Covid Superheroes” about the heroic sacrifices people are making during these scary times. “No Time to Go on Walks” by Sophi, 12, tells of a girl’s busy schedule before the pandemic, and what her time in quarantine has taught her to value. Finished crumble! From the Stone Soup blog July 2018 Zoe’s Fruit Crumble by Sarah Cymrot (Inspired by Martha Stewart’s Peach Crumble) Yield: 12 small servings Time: 30 minutes Ingredients: Filling 7 cups of any fruit (I just made mine with blueberries and sour cherries—you can use frozen or fresh fruit) 6 teaspoons cornstarch or 4 tablespoons flour A scant 1/2 cup sugar (or as little as 1/4 cup, depending on how sweet your fruit is) A splash of lemon juice (it is okay if you don’t have this—I often leave it out) Heaping 1/2 teaspoon of salt Topping 5 tablespoons unsalted butter Scant 1/4 cup brown sugar or 1/4 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon molasses 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt Directions Preheat the oven to 375 degrees For the filling: In a bowl, gently (so that you don’t mash the fruit) mix all the ingredients for the filling, flour/cornstarch, sugar, fruit, lemon juice, and salt. Pour fruit mixture into a 12″ by 8″ baking dish. For the topping: Cream the butter and brown sugar in an electric mixer for about two minutes at medium to high speed. Add salt and flour in a few batches. Mix until the dough starts to form a ball. Crumble the topping into little pieces over the fruit mixture. Bake for 40–50 minutes—if it looks like it is browning too quickly on top, cover with aluminum foil. It’s done when the fruit is bubbling and the topping has some color. Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered
recipe
Zoe’s Summer Crumble
The sun streams down through the rows of berry bushes, revealing glistening berries and intermingling with giggles as bigger and bigger patches of blackberries are found. Hands dart in, avoiding the prickly branches and beetles munching on the leaves. “How many containers have you filled? I have already gotten two!” my sister Zoe calls from further down the row, always wanting a competition. Wet grass clings to our feet as we happily search for the hidden berries inside the tangled mess of vines, popping a few in our mouths when the other isn’t looking. After cartons, and bellies (shh!), are full, we run inside to begin our project. A few raspberries at the farm! A crumble is a perfect treat to end a hot summer day. Juicy, crisp, and too sweet, it can be garnished with a scoop of cold, creamy vanilla ice cream or eaten plain. Though I love a good crumble in the winter, curled up on a couch in front of the fire with a book (click here to read my blog post about a delicious winter treat!), no one can beat a delicious summer crumble. A crumble tastes of humid summer days, a cool crisp breeze, a running stream. With one bite it pulls me away to previous happy summers, while making me feel content and lucky where I am. What reminds you of summer? Please, please, please leave a comment below! My family’s favorite crumble recipes are from Smitten Kitchen and Martha Stewart, but in my opinion, nothing is better than my sister’s summer crumble (inspired by these two recipes) that she whips together to create the perfect summer night. The beauty of a crumble is that it is very forgiving. It can contain any kind of fruit that you can dream of (my favorites are blackberries, blueberries, and peaches), with just a thickener (flour or cornstarch), a little bit of sugar (not too much!), and a topping of flour, sugar, salt, and butter. A crumble is like tie dying, any way it is created it will look beautiful. If you make this recipe, take a picture and send it to me! Ohh, those summer days. Although Zoe can make any recipe overly delicious, with this recipe the rest of us can at least can be assured that we can make a pretty good summer crumble. Here is Zoe’s recipe and happy baking: Zoe’s Summer Crumble (Inspired by Martha Stewart’s Peach Crumble) Yield: 12 small servings Time: 30 minutes Ingredients: Filling 7 cups of any fruit (I just made mine with blueberries and sour cherries–you can use frozen or fresh fruit) 6 teaspoons cornstarch or 4 tablespoons flour A scant 1/2 a cup sugar (or as little as 1/4 a cup, depending on how sweet your fruit is) A splash of lemon juice (it is okay if you don’t have this–I often leave it out) Heaping 1/2 teaspoon of salt Topping 5 tablespoons unsalted butter Scant 1/4 a cup brown sugar or 1/4 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon molasses 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt Directions Preheat the oven to 375 degrees For the filling: In a bowl, gently (so that you don’t mash the fruit) mix all the ingredients for the filling, flour/cornstarch, sugar, fruit, lemon juice, and salt. Pour fruit mixture into a 12″ by 8″ baking dish. For the topping: Cream the butter and brown sugar in an electric mixer for about two minutes at medium to high speed. Add salt and flour in a few batches. Mix until the dough starts to form a ball. Crumble the topping into little pieces over the fruit mixture. Bake for 40-50 minutes—if it looks like it is browning too quickly on top, cover with aluminum foil. It’s done when the fruit is bubbling and the topping has some color. A heaping 1/2 teaspoon of salt! Pouring the flour and salt into the fruit. Berries galore!!! Preheated to 375 degrees. Ready to bake… Putting it into the oven! Finished crumble! SaveSave
Writing Activity: write a recipe and send it to Stone Soup
Quail Kabob ingredients. The recipe is by a nine-year-old. Instructions for the Quail Kabob. We all eat, and many of us like to cook. If you are 13 or under and like to cook, we’d like you to submit recipes to Stone Soup. We will publish the best of them in Stone Soup Online and, over time, when we have a enough really really good ones, we will publish a cookbook. The manuscript for Quail Kebobs at the top of this page was written by my daughter when she was nine. Here is the format we would like your recipe submission to be in: Recipe title. The Headnote. Maximum 250 words. Many cookbooks use a recipe format that includes what they call a “headnote.” The headnote is a little story. You can think of it as a short story. What you say there is really up to you, the recipe author. You can talk about how the dish is your favorite. You can tell about the first time you tasted it. Or smelled it. Or made it. Or, you can give some advice about the recipe. For example, if there is a tricky part, you can talk about it here. Whatever you say, you should think of the headnote as a little jewel. The list of ingredients. This is where you say what goes into a recipe, and usually, how much of it that is needed. But, there is leeway here. For example, if you are writing a recipe for fried chicken, you can say, butter or oil for frying. If making crepes you could say, add milk to make a thin batter. On the other hand, you can also give exact measurements for everything. Instructions. The instructions are step-by-step procedures that need to be followed to make the recipe work. One way to think about it as you write them is to imagine that you are talking to a friend. You are standing next to a friend in a kitchen, explaining to the friend what to do. If, in the list of ingredients, your recipe called for two eggs, then in the instructions you might say, “Break two eggs into a bowl and mix.” Depending on what you are making, you might say, “Break two eggs into a bow and mix until light and fluffy.” In other words, tell people what they need to do. Flour and milk mixed together can be lumpy. If the batter needs to be smooth, say, “Mix until there are no more lumps.” Before writing your recipe, look in cookbooks at your home or at the library to get an idea of how cookbook authors do it. Of course, also, look online. Great recipes are a literary form all their own. Because you are writing about things that are hard to describe — for example, taste and smell — it can be a real challenge for you, the writer, to come up with original prose. “This waffle tastes wonderful!” “This steak tastes wonderful!” “This bean-and-cheese taco tastes wonderful!” OK. Wonderful! But, how does that bean-and-cheese taco taste? What makes it so wonderful that I should bother making your recipe? Why your waffle, and not someone else’s? We will test recipes. So, your recipe needs to work. We are looking for originality, evocative writing, and for instructions with absolute clarity. Happy cooking, and good luck!