Crescent Dragonwagon is the author of the James Beard Award-winning Passionate Vegetarian, The Cornbread Gospels, Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook, many children's books, and two novels.Dragonwagon is a Southern Yankee: though born in New York, for 18 years she was innkeeper/chef/co-owner of Dairy Hollow House, an acclaimed country inn in the Ozark Mountain community of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where she resided for 36 years. But, since 2002, she has lived in Westminster West, Vermont.The book is "a delicious hodgepodge of cookery gleaned from friends, guests at the inn, and the fertile and accomplished minds of the two authors."

"This is the bread I baked for Ned baked for Ned in the morning." And so begins a delightful story narrated by Glenda, as she prepares a nice surprise for Ned -- "what a fellow!" First she bakes the bread, and then she presents the cheese, the salad, the soup, the olives, tulips in a jug, and the two soup bowls and spoons! Whew! But little does Glenda know that when Ned comes home for dinner, he'll have a special surprise of his own to share!

And then it rained... And what a long time since it has rained! A whole apartment building full of overjoyed neighbors revel in the raininess. It's the perfect day to read a book on dinosaurs, to stay home and bake bread, or even to go out for a splishy-splashy adventure to a café with your father for a bowl of hot soup. But when it keeps raining day after day after day, baking bread becomes dull, and splishy-splashy walks become plain old wet ones and not at all adventuresome. You begin to long for the kind of weather where you'd want to eat ice cream, not soup. Naturally everyone starts grumbling....Everyone, that is, except for the wise father of one grouchy little boy because... The sun comes out! And what a long time since it has come! A whole apartment building full of overjoyed neighbors celebrate the sunniness. For it's the perfect day to go roller skating, visit the bakery, or put on your shiny cool sunglasses and stroll out for a sunny day adventure, including a ringside seat at an outdoor café with your father for a dish of ice cream. But when the sun gets hotter and hotter, day after day after day, roller skating gets exhausting, and a walk becomes less and less of an adventure and more and more uncomfortable. You begin to long for the kind of weather where you'd want to eat soup, not ice cream. Naturally everyone starts grumbling....Everyone, that is, except for the wise father of one grouchy little boy because...