It's in that tradition that we're here today, and we look to soup because there's no force on the globe that brings people together on a daily basis with the same consistency and manner than the cultivation, preparation and eating of food. Food affords us the opportunity to touch everyone in our community, to address the needs of all groups - food is the intersection of the most pressing issues of our time.

The cooking side is the easier way to be creative. On the policy side, it's harder to think of new approaches to problems.

The menu of this kitchen will have more than soup; it will serve as an opportunity to explore the vast untapped power of food as a force for participatory democracy, as a means of empowerment for those who have little and as a lens through which we embrace, and in fact relish, our differences but see and live through our commonalities. If you eat, then you are a part of this.

I curse Microsoft at least once a day. I only curse Apple every other day. As I see it, that's a 100 percent improvement.

It's in that tradition that we're here today, and we look to soup because there's no force on the globe that brings people together on a daily basis with the same consistency and manner than the cultivation, preparation and eating of food. Food affords us the opportunity to touch everyone in our community, to address the needs of all groups - food is the intersection of the most pressing issues of our time.