Once a gifted ballet dancer, Julia Costell buckled under the demands of a professional dance career, and has landed with a thud in an unglamorous job as a guidance counselor at a performing arts high school. Living back home with her parents and feeling lost, she is afraid she'll never soar again.

In a struggling Dallas neighborhood, two unlikely allies--Sandra Kaye Darden whose missing adopted son draws her to her Uncle Poppy's home and Cass Blue who is struggling to survive on her own after ditching foster care--realize their ability to make a difference--and the power of what becomes known as the Summer Kitchen to nourish the soul.