"Trixie! Honey! Holp! We have no food!"

Sixteen year old Trixie Belden looked up as she and her friends finished setting up sleeping bags and tents in the Belden living room. A Bob White – Belden – Lynch sleepover was underway as their respective parents went into the City to see a Broadway show.

"Will we starve?" Terry Lynch asked, exchanging a look with his twin brother.

"No one is going to starve," Honey said.

"Trixie can make beef stroganoff," Mart teased.

Trixie sniffed. "We can have Mart raid his savings and take us all to Wimpy's."

Jim winked slyly at Trixie. "We could make stone soup," he suggested.

Bobby's big blue eyes widened. "What's stone soup?"

"Didn't Moms ever tell you how to make Stone Soup?" Trixie asked, catching the spirit of the game.

"Well, first, we need five nice strong stones," Brian said, his brown eyes serious. He directed the Lynches and Bobby out to the back yard to locate several large stones.

"I'll start boiling a pot of water," Trixie said, getting out the large soup pot.

"Just stones and water?" Bobby asked.

"Yep. That's the way Moms always taught me to make it," Trixie said.

Dan looked confused. "Am I missing something? Why don't we just call for some pizza?"

"It's a children's book," Di said, quietly after the little ones went out to find their rocks. "You'll catch on in a minute, but this should be a great way to keep the kids entertained this afternoon."

Honey cleared the table and brought out ingredients and began to make biscuits. "Oh, good idea, Honey," Mart said. He pulled out a baking tin and a drinking cup to cut biscuits with.

"Are we actually going to put the rocks in?" Jim asked.

Trixie grinned as Brian grimaced. "No, I'm going to wash them and toss a few potatoes in, instead."

Thirty minutes later, five very dirty rocks lined the kitchen sink. "Let me wash these up and start them boiling," Trixie said. "You five go scrub up."

"I'll supervise the washing of the hands," Brian said.

Trixie washed and quickly substituted rocks for potatoes and set the water to a low boil.

"Mmm, this is so good," Jim said. "It's a shame, though. Rock soup isn't the same without a few carrots."

"We have carrots in the garden!" Bobby said and ran off to get them.

Jim washed, sliced and added the carrots. This time Mart took a taste.

"Why, James, I do believe this is the most delicious sojourn into making Rock Soup you have ever made. But I dare say, it needs some tomatoes."

"I saw some tomatoes out on the vines," Larry exclaimed before rushing out to grab a few.

"I can't believe we're making soup out of rocks!" Di's youngest sister said.

"It's a shame Moms didn't leave us any meat," Brian said, taking a hand at stirring the soup.

"Isn't there some left over roast from last night?" Mart suggested, rubbing his belly. "I sure do love Stone Soup with left over roast."

Bobby dutifully went to the fridge and pulled out the left overs. "There's a little chicken left over, too," he said, excitedly. "Will that go in Stone Soup, too?"

"You bet," Dan said, smiling at Di. "Everything tastes good with Stone Soup."

Soon the biscuits were in the oven and a variety of ingredients lines up against the stove.

Larry's tomatoes.

Bobby's refrigerator left overs.

Mindy Lynch's found can of corn.

"It needs more garlic," Dan said when it was his turn.

"Dude, not everything is about the garlic," Mart said. "No one would stand near me for a week after we had your red sauce."

"No such thing as too much garlic," Dan said defensively. "That's what Mrs. Cappetti who lived upstairs from us always said."

"Was this the same Mrs. Cappetti who gave you your Alfredo recipe?"

"Uh huh."

"And your garlic bread ratio?"

"Same lady."

"And the chocolate cake?" Di asked with an impish grin.

Dan opened his mouth to respond but then laughed at the joke. "No, I don't put garlic in chocolate cake," he said.

"Okay," Larry relented. "Some garlic is good, just not too much."

"We definitely don't want to make Mrs. Cappetti's Stone Soup," Jim agreed, nodding his head.

Bobby showed his friends where the garlic was stored in a small basket and they studied them before handing Trixie three cloves. Dutifully, she chopped them up and added them to the soup.

"This is really good," Mart said, a little surprised, after each item was added. "But it needs… something more."

"Guy Fieri says whenever you get that 'something is missing' feeling from a recipe, it's usually missing salt," Honey said.

"You're still watching the cooking shows?" Brian asked.

"Well, he's no Michael Symon but he's okay," Honey said, a bit defensively.

"Meh," Trixie said. "It's Bobby Flay or nothing."

"Oh, give me Gordon Ramsey any day," Di said, fluttering her lashes while Mart groaned.

"So, salt?" Bobby said, rolling his eyes. "And when do we get to taste?"

Trixie added the salt as Dan came in with clippings from Moms' herb garden. "What?" he said when everyone turned to look at him. "Am I doing something wrong?"

Bobby took the bowl from Dan and flexed his index finger, urging Dan closer to Bobby's face. He put both of his hands on Dan's cheeks and in a very serious tone said, "First someone tastes, then they decide what's missing, then Larry, Terry, Cindy and Mindy and I go fetch it."

Jim snorted. "Yeah, Dan, haven't you figured that out, yet?"

"Ohhh," Dan said, as though a light bulb had gone off, explaining the whole idea to him. "Thanks, Bobby, I guess I was confused."

To Jim, he shoulder bumped him forcing Jim to trip into Trixie who knocked Di into Mart.

"Knock it off, you guys," Brian scolded.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Mart protested. "How come those two can mess around but I'm the one who gets yelled at?"

"Hello!" Bobby yelled. "Can we get back to making that soup? I'm starving!"

The timer dinged and Honey removed two trays of fresh made biscuits. Brian found a basket in the pantry and lined it with a napkin. "Those look amazing, Honey."

Honey smiled. "Cooking class, freshman year," she said with a smile. "Jim could you get butter for the table?"

Mart joined Jim and the two Bob-Whites set the table.

"What do you think, Bobby?" Trixie said, handing her brother a small bowl. "Does it need anything else?"

"Actually," he said with a wide smile. "It tastes perfect. Let's have dinner!"

Everyone settled around the table and for a long time, there was only the muted sounds of eating.

"This really is good," Mart declared, enjoying his third bowl of soup and second biscuit.

"And with it made out of stones, Moms can serve it all the time and never go grocery shopping again," Bobby declared, laughing.

Jim lifted his glass of water in a toast. "To stone soup and good appetites," he said. Everyone joined in clinking their glasses.

Dinner over, bellies full, kitchen cleaned the Lynch twins and Bobby stretched out in one of the tents Jim set up inside the living room.

"That was a lot of fun," Mindy said, her lavender eyes sparkling.

"I can't believe you got them to make a whole dinner for us," Larry said.

Bobby grinned at his friends. "I can't believe they thought we were stupid enough to believe they made soup out of stones. Like, what are we, six years old?"

The end.

Author's notes:

CWE #13: Whatcha Cookin' Good Lookin'Dan: why anything he can cook has way too much garlic in it (12)

Stone Soup is an old folk story in which hungry strangers compel the local people of a town into sharing their food.

Guy Fieri, Gordon Ramsay, Michael Symon, and Bobby Flay are all celebrity chefs.