Filling Empty Bowls

A colorful array of artisan bowls greets everyone who attends Capital Area Food Bank’s three Empty Bowls events in the DC area this fall.  Faced with a wide variety of handmade ceramic containers, each attendee’s mission is to select a favorite bowl to carry home as a gift.  The souvenir also serves as sobering reminder of the people in our area whose dinner bowls are empty.

Each of the bowls displayed at the event entrance is appealing in its own way.  So it can be a challenging task to pick only one favorite bowl.  But that’s a First World dilemma, and it pales in comparison with finding a way to fill the stomachs of our neighbors in need.

Hunger Looks Different Here

You don’t have to visit Third World countries to find hunger, although it is certainly present there.  But hunger is right here in our own backyard, impacting 700,000 individuals in Washington, DC, and the six surrounding counties.  It may look different than what you expect.   Here in our area, the skeletal limbs and swollen stomachs that plague children in Africa and other hunger-ravaged areas are replaced by serious malnutrition and chronic disease.

Food Deserts Cause Malnutrition

Many of our neighbors live in food deserts.  Food deserts are defined as geographic areas where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for people without access to an automobile. People in these food deserts often suffer from a shortage of grocery stores stocked with healthy options.  But they are surrounded by numerous fast food establishments that sell inexpensive items that are laden with sugar, fat, and calories.  No wonder we have chronic diseases and an obesity epidemic.  Nearly half of the people currently being served by the Capital Area Food Bank suffer from diabetes and heart disease.  So the organization is working hard to provide healthier food options, including fresh veggies and fruit.

Finding Ways to Fill the Bowls

I’m happy to note that the Capital Area Food Bank is successfully filling many empty bowls in the DC area. Last year the food bank provided 45 million pounds of food to 540,000 people.  The food bank distributes food through two channels:  1) by forming partnerships with 444 community organizations that serve as food pantries;  and 2) by delivering food directly into hard-to-reach areas.

Funding for Food

The food bank depends on donations from the community to support its programs, and that fact brings us back to the Empty Bowls events.  Because of a generous sponsorship for the event from the Safeway Foundation, attendees can be pleased to know that buying a $35 ticket for an Empty Bowls event provides 87 meals for people in need.

Sampling Some Soups

And event attendees can also be happy about being able to sample a variety of soups that are donated by local restaurants.  The only hitch is that pickings can be slim for those of us who eat plant-based diets. The Rosslyn event that I attended had only had one vegetarian selection, and no vegan soups.  So I sampled the Roasted Chestnut Veloute soup from Chef Sebastian Rondier of BRABO Tasting Room in Alexandria, Virginia.  In case you’re not familiar with a veloute, it’s similar to a bechamel sauce.  Bechamel and veloute are two of the five mother sauces of the culinary arts, the others being hollandaise, espagnole, and tomato.  Both bechamel and veloute are developed from a roux, which consists of oil or butter that’s combined with flour.  The roux is used as a thickener for a liquid, which is milk or cream for a bechamel sauce but is a clear stock for a veloute.  In the case of the soup that Chef Rondier served at the Empty Bowls event, I expect that he had carefully whisked a roasted chestnut stock into a roux, resulting in a velvety veloute.

A Velvety Voloute

The name for veloute is derived from the French word for velvet, and Chef Rondier’s Roasted Chestnut Veloute soup was appropriately smooth and delicate.  And while it would have been nice to have some additional vegetarian (or even vegan) soups to sample, I supplemented the soup with a hearty whole wheat roll from Great Harvest Bread Company.  And I didn’t go away hungry.  But other people in our community are not so fortunate.  So please join me in supporting the food bank, and let’s help to fill some empty bowls!