Soups for the Soul

A visit to Empty Bowls will warm your stomach and your heart—each $20 ticket buys unlimited samples of more than 50 spoon-worthy recipes, and proceeds fund programs for Southwest Florida’s food-insecure.

With all this cold weather and Jack Frost nipping at our noses each morning, the 12th annual Empty Bowls Naples event couldn’t be more welcome on Saturday, Jan. 27.

The gathering in Cambier Park, which will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., brings together 52 local restaurants, food businesses and nonprofits to batch huge pots of soup that get ladled into each ticketholder’s bottomless bowl (the bowls are beautifully handcrafted pieces of pottery donated by local artists, students and volunteers). And from Bayside’s jambalaya, Bleu Provence’s curried cauliflower, DeRomo’s Tuscan bean and M Waterfront Grille’s New England clam chowder to The Ritz-Carlton’s butternut squash, Wynn’s white bean and ham, and Moura Bistro’s lentil, the list of what you can slurp and sample goes on and on. The money raised from each $20 entrance fee is donated back to organizations fighting hunger in our community. In addition to live music, pottery demonstrations and hands-on painting displays where people can aid in making the bowls for next year’s event, there is also a silent auction where more funds are secured to help those who are food-insecure in our own backyard.

Get the Hot Dishevery Wednesday and Friday online and monthly in the magazine. Subscribe to the Hot Dish e-newsletter here.