Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Why we should cook big

Why we should cook big

A community gathers for dinner in the Nelsonville, Ohio, town park.

Dottie Fromal

The Aspen Institute’s Weave: The Social Fabric Project tackles the problem of broken trust that has left Americans divided, lonely, and in social gridlock. Weave connects and invests in grassroots leaders stepping up to weave a new, inclusive social fabric where they live. This is the second in an ongoing series telling the stories of community weavers from across the country.

Plata is communications manager for Weave: The Social Fabric Project.

If it’s Thursday night in Nelsonville, Ohio, and the weather is fine, you probably have dinner plans. Neighbors in the city of 5,000 people in the Appalachian Mountains gather — at the firehouse, the park, or somewhere else — around big vats of food prepared by volunteers.

“Everyone is welcome to help. We serve one another,” says Dottie Fromal, one of the original organizers of the dinners that started over six years ago. The size of the dinners vary, but up to 350 folks have joined in — about 7 percent of the town’s population. Fromal says in 2020 they served over 19,000 meals.


“It’s two to three hours of chaos, but magical chaos. When we eat the same food, look each other in the eyes, and sit at the same table, magic happens. We can see how much power there is in our community when we show up for each other,” she says.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Nelsonville residents have needed that power as they have watched mining jobs disappear, young folks leave, and opioid addictions rise. “People in this town go through so much that we now start every meal by sharing something positive that happened in our lives,” says Fromal. “As we’ve built trust, people started sharing very intimate things, things that you would share with your family.”

For many weavers, food is the path to opening hearts and creating connections that can then turn into after-school programs, friendships across race or class, support for immigrants or neighbors returning from prison, and any number of other weaving projects. And while it might feel like magic, there’s proof that shared food helps build trust.

Two researchers at the University of Chicago ran a series of experiments to see the effects of eating the same food during negotiations. In one experiment, they asked participants to play the role of a manager and a union representative during salary negotiations. During their discussion, they were served snacks. When the pairs ate the same food, they got to agreement much quicker than when they ate different foods. Sharing food, the researchers found, promotes trust and cooperation.

It’s nice when science backs up what we already know intuitively — that food is a form of love. Yet how to cook for a crowd of a few dozen or a few hundred to kickstart a community is not obvious. We asked Dottie Fromal to share a few suggestions from Nelsonville that work at scale. She mentioned that tacos and baked potato bars are some of the town’s favorites, as they are inexpensive, easy to cook and adaptable to dietary restrictions.

"For tacos, we start with tortilla shells and folks add whatever toppings they want. We usually arrange the food so that vegan and vegetarian options are first and meat options are at the end of the table,” she said. “It’s fun to see the kids try new things, like cilantro. And the adults sometimes try something new, too. Our baked potato bar is similar — we start with a baked potato and then the toppings are arranged so folks can choose what they like.”

This story first appeared in Weave’s weekly newsletter.

Read More

R.A.F.T. for America:
An Important Lesson About Bridging Our Differences

A group of about 30 Americans with diverse political leanings recently embarked on a rafting trip along a North Carolina river.

R.A.F.T. for America: An Important Lesson About Bridging Our Differences

A heavy morning mist was still wafting up from the river when CBS's advance team pulled into the parking lot at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Those of us on the R.A.F.T. (Reuniting Americans by Fostering Trust) for America team would soon be welcoming our invitees - unlikely red/blue pairs of politicians, community leaders, and lay people. CBS was there to see what would happen when these polar opposites were asked to engage with one another, on and off the river.

For example, North Carolina's Senator Thom Tillis (R) would be sharing a raft with the former mayor of Charlotte, Jennifer Roberts (D). In another raft, Rev. Dr. Rodney Sadler (D) would be paired up with Lance Moseley (R), a conservative Trump supporter.

Keep ReadingShow less
The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself

"Stone of Hope" statue, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Sunday, January 19, 2014.

(Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s familiar words, inscribed on his monument in Washington, D.C., now raise the question: Is that true?

A moral universe must, by its very definition, span both space and time. Yet where is the justice for the thousands upon thousands of innocent lives lost over the past year — whether from violence between Ukraine and Russia, or toward Israelis or Palestinians, or in West Darfur? Where is the justice for the hundreds of thousands of “disappeared” in Mexico, Syria, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the world? Where is the justice for the billions of people today increasingly bearing the brunt of climate change, suffering from the longstanding polluting practices of other communities or other countries? Is the “arc” bending the wrong way?

Keep ReadingShow less
A Republic, if we can keep it

American Religious and Civil Rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968) addresses the crowd on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, Washington DC, August 28, 1963.

(Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

A Republic, if we can keep it

Part XXXIV: An Open Letter to President Trump from the American People

Dear President Trump,

Keep ReadingShow less
Finding meaning in a tragedy that defies understanding

A barn burning during a wildfire.

Getty Images//Photographer: David Odisho/Bloomberg

Finding meaning in a tragedy that defies understanding

The devastation caused by the recent fires in Los Angeles has been heartbreaking. The loss of life and property, and the grief that so many are experiencing, remind us of the vulnerability of everything in life.

Nothing is permanent. There are no guarantees for tomorrow. We are all so fragile and that fragility so often leads to breaking. And it hurts.

Keep ReadingShow less