Laguna Beach: New Time, Same Place?

By popular demand, a February Soup Swap has been scheduled for February 11th, 2008 at 7pm in either Laguna Beach or San Diego.

RSVP today and you will be sent all the details, and you will be able to see what soups everyone else is bringing.

Show off your grandma's recipe - Its a fun, easy way to get to know neighbors, friends old and new and get a wonderful mix of homemade soup for your freezer.

For more information about the Laguna Beach soup swap, drop a note to Megan here.

Gourmet Girl's Laguna Beach Soup Swap

Megan, a.k.a, Gourmet Girl is a professional personal chef in Laguna Beach, California. Given what little I know of Laguna Beach (all from television), I would guess that being a chef there is a fierce proposition and you'd have to be damn good to do it full time, all the time. Megan does personal cooking classes, is a chef for ski getaways, and does events large and small.

Odds are, since she invited her chef pals, that this soup swap in balmy So-Cal is going to be delicious.

If you are in Laguna Beach, and free on National Soup Swap Day, January 23, this could well be some of the best eating you'll do all year. Drop Megan a note, here.

Gazpacho in Sunny Santa Barbara?

A pleasant early evening on January 23rd in Santa Barbara swapping soup. How great will that be...as the sun gently sets on the ocean and far away, those Midwesterners face bitter cold and dreary plodding over frozen banks of snow!

If you're down there, living in paradise, you can connect to Bente for information, here.

Swappin' soup in the LBC

It's gonna be red.

For this year's second annual Soup Swap in Long Beach, I put a lot of thought into the kind of soup that would be appropriate. It would have to be creamy. And warming. And colorful. Most importantly, it would have to turn out.

My thoughts turned to the Rosemary Red Soup I completely botched last year at Passover. And I thought to myself, here's my second chance.

This time, I'll prepare it in advance, to avoid any deadline-induced choking on my part. And I'll read the directions, too.

Meanwhile, I'm spreading the word around town. Soup Swap at my house, 6 p.m. sharp, January 23rd. Bring your most boffo soups and a set of Tupperware to share. I'll have the bowls, spoons, and crusty bread at the ready.

Bring a bottle of wine, too. Audge tells me she'll be bringing her famous tortilla soup. Nobody wants to miss that. And she promises she won't get drunk and fall out of a parked Mini Cooper this year, either.

Won't you join us?

Old Friends + New Cities

With winter fully underway, we're getting mail from lot of folks with information about their Soup Swapping plans.

Here's some of what we're hearing:

Mark & Christi, formerly of Providence, have relocated to Boston and are planning on holding their second swap as a wild-times party, Saturday, January 26th.

Portland, Oregon's energized West Foodies Group & The Hens is talking about bumping theirs up to an earlier date in January due to a dancing competition in Nashville.

The UV Scene will be hosting another Soup Swap in the far northern reaches of the Upper Valley in New Hampshire (and likely glad all the politicians have left). The UV includes White River Junction, Lebanon, Hanover, Norwich, and all the hamlets there on the border between New Hampshire and Vermont.

Bad Home Cooking and all their friends will be swapping again in Long Beach, CA.

Eleanor, of amuse-bouche, will host a second swap, and is looking for a bigger place to hold it due to the interest in last February's swap in Southport, North Carolina.

A new group is getting going in Upton, MA (west of the 495) and there's another Jersey party starting in Bergen County. We've heard of some interest for groups in Milwaukee, WI and NYC, though not clear if they're hosting or looking to join other groups.

We'd be glad to add you to our list of cities holding soup swaps! Just drop a note! We can post an announcement or invites, or list your city with a contact email. We'll add you to our mailing list, and help you keep up-to-date on all the fun of Soup Swap.

Oakland's First Soup Swap

Here's another swap spawned by Not Martha's postings and swap, a Bay Area Soup Swap this past Saturday.

Lindsay over at The Craft Collective writes, "I was so distracted by the soups that I forgot to take any PEOPLE pictures!" And we can see why! Look at that pile of soup. We are most intrigued by the bright green soup in the back, a Vietnamese desert soup. What is that? It sounds awesome. "I have to say that it felt a little bit like Christmas when we were picking."

You can read all about how Lindsay has become a proponent of swapping soup, here. We are waiting for some recipes!

So-Cal Soup Swap

Shandy down in Azusa, CA has a fine write up of the Azusa, California Soup Swap on February 12th. (It took me a while to get it posted). It looks relaxed, comfy and just about perfect for a mellow Monday of Soup Hoarding. Awesome.

You can read about it here.

It's worth checking out two recipes she's posted: one for Spinach-Basil Soup and another for a quick Minestrone.

Azusa Steps Out on Feb 12!

This from the Azusa organizer, Shandy:

"YES! we are swapping in Azusa! Well actually many of the swappers will be coming from all over: Pasadena, Los Angeles, Culver City, Pomona. You know us Southern Californians--we love to drive (love? HAVE to!)

We will be having or soup swap on February 12th-a quiet bit of fun as I have a four month old.((ED NOTE: VERY CUTE)) I look forward to sharing some pictures and the Gracious Bowls's freezing tips were very helpful. I will direct the swappers to her sight! Many thanks for creating such a fun event to honor friends, home-cooking and the humble bowl of soup!

Ed Note: HOORAY! HOORAY!!

Swapping from California to Carolina

Though the buzz of Internet chatter, we notice two new swaps happening this month but we don't know the organizers or party goers.

So if you are swapping down way down Azusa, California or out in basketball-crazed North Carolina, give us a shout out when you're ready. We'd love to post some pictures of your swap, a funny story, or a bit about your Telling of the Soup.

Remember, we've posted some easy guidelines in the right navigation, as well as links to other food sites and swappers we admire. It's worth looking at Gracious Bowl's freezing and storing resource.

It's a national craze.

Soup Doggy Dog

(A special prize to those of you over 30 who know that the rapper Snoop Doggy Dog hails from Long Beach ("The LBC") and so get the pun in this title.)

The first annual National Soup Swap day in Southern California was what could only be described as Boffo. We had five different soups, six adults, six kids and one baby in my not large apartment. All of this on a school night.

All of the soups were a hit. I will provide recipes in a later post, but suffice to say, we all ate very well, flitting from soup to soup like hussies and feasting on unlimited crusty bread and wayyyyyy too much wine.

But did my Persian yogurt and rice soup turn out, you ask? It did. Beyond all expectations.

Everyone loved it.

I'm not used to everyone loving anything I cook. I made lentils just in case this experiment failed, which I fully expected.

Ramalee brought her spicy chicken soup. Joey brought cream of broccoli. Audrey made her famous meatball soup. Luke didn't bring a soup, mostly because he didn't know a soup swap was going on until the very last moment, so he swung by Trader Joe's and brought a chocolate tort instead. How typical of him to stumble unwittingly into a good situation. The tort was still half frozen when we all tore into it, souped up and fairly tipsy. Audrey later fell out of his Mini when he drove her home, but that's a post for another time.

I see from other posts here that people were very organized and had Tupperware stacks of soup on the table, all labeled and ready to go. I wasn't quite that organized: We brought out the very pots the soups were cooked in and put them on my dining room table on oven mitts and ersatz trivets so we could ladle the goodness directly into our bowls. Next year -- and there will be a next year -- I'll try to be neater about the whole thing. Everyone did go home with a sampling of each soup, however. I'm delighted to report that I now have my lunch menu for the rest of the week.

Hats off to Knox Gardner and the rest of the gang for lighting the fire. Soup is all about friendship and community. This is a fantastic tradition and it deserves to be nurtured. Next year's soup swap will be bigger, badder...and soupier!!

Bad Home Cooking: Long Beach Swaps

Bad Home Cooking's purpose is one that I can get behind: "I want to cook for my family and friends. I want to cook for you. Tragically, I have no natural talent in the kitchen, just a lot of desire." What's better than a lovely home-cooked meal with your pals? Not much, talent be damned. Heck, with all the snow in Seattle, if a pal called me up and said "Come snuggle on the couch wtih me and a frozen pot pie", I think they're genius.

Lucky for us, the author of the blog, Julie, stumbled into Gracious Bowl and found out about Soup Swap. She'll be hosting a swap in recently chilly Long Beach, California. If you're way down in sunny California and want to swap soup, give a shout out.