Centennial, CO's Giant First Swap

Jan from Centennial, Colorado writes:

We had 17 kinds of soup, 20 participants and a lot of fun! The “Soup Nazi” listened to all the stories during the “Telling of the Soup” and gave his nod to Tamara, who told of packaging up her soup after having dished out some for her children, and then realized she didn’t have enough for her 4 quarts and took the soup back from her children! Talk about taking food from babies!

Bribes for the “Soup Nazi” included several single servings of soup, which he awarded a gift of a soup mug to his favorite Cream of Mushroom, and some Peanut Brittle, which he immediately hid from the rest of the guests. I still don’t know where he put it and he’s my husband!

The funniest part of our swap was that I, the organizer somehow ended up with only 3 quarts of soup. Someone out there has an extra quart and they are not talking! I did make up for it by taking all the leftover veggies off the appetizer table and roasting them in the oven and pureeing them for later soup!

Here is our fabulous soup list. Everyone went home with the recipes that people either e-mailed in advance or brought with them, so it was quite fun!

3 kinds of Chicken Tortilla Soup, all different and one came with Zucchini bread as a bribe!)
Peanut Squash Soup
Sweet Red Pepper and Crab Bisque
Split Pea with Chorizo
Chicken Corn Chowder (from our token male swapper)
Lentil Soup
Vegetable Lentil Soup
French Onion with cheese and toast included!
Butternut Squash soup (the makers husband gave the telling of the soup and swears it’s better than the soup it was derived from which came from the Brown Palace Hotel here in Denver)
Cream of Mushroom (Soup Nazi Favorite taste)
Chicken and Salsa
Zesty Pumpkin
Chicken and Sausage Gumbo (most stolen soup from those who had wild cards!)
Hungarian Chicken Paprikash Soup (made with Shmaltz, which was described during the telling!)
Vegetable Bean (which was supposed to be Vegetable Basil Bean, but Thelissa forgot the basil!)
We had a bonus recipe for Wisconsin Beer Cheese Soup from Lynn, but she was ill and her soup could not make it!

We ended the evening by talking about a summer swap!

[ed. note: This rules!]

Loveland, Colorado Tall Tales and Soup Swap

Instead of sticking to drawing numbers out of a hat or pot for the soup picking order, the tennis club of Loveland, Colorado went for the high entertainment value of giving the person with the best "telling of the Soup" tall tale the first pick.

What the second best story get? Well, they got the second pick. This would leave folks with mundane stories very last in soup drawing order. Wow! Harsh and Intense! In our crowd, we'd have to compete with interpretive dance, music on tin pipes, and bawdy jokes just to have a chance to draw some soup.

Oh the humanity!

Loveland, Colorado: Brave souls.

Jo writes of their swap this Saturday, "Our group of 8 shared their tall tales in the form of poetry, prose and stories. And the soups are terrific!"

We hope we'll see them again during the National Soup Swap 2009!

Ha! Ha! Invite for Centennial, Colorado

Here's one of the cleverest invites we've seen for Soup Swap. It comes from Jan in Centennial, Colorado, just south of Denver.

I'm guessing it's the rarefied air at a mile high that lends itself to hilarious invites. Make sure to click on it, to get the larger reading copy.

One thing I like about these folks, is they decided not only not to swap on Wednesday night because it wasn't convenient for them, but to only make four quarts instead of our recommended six, because it seemed more sane to them! Good on them for doing what works for their own group. Some groups taste each other's soups, some make smaller batches, some swap in the morning, some drink coffee, some have wine. You just need to do what's right for your group and HAVE FUN!

They'll be joining Pougkeepsie and Jersey City by hosting their Soup Swap on Sunday, January 27th.

For information this Denver-area swap, drop Jan a note, here.

New Soup Swaps x 10

Gone for the weekend, I returned to an email box filled with many new and returning Soup Swaps. Over the week, you can look forward to seeing some great invites to swaps in Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia and Kansas, and Washington!

If you're hosting a swap and want to see your invite here, drop us a note.

Soup Swaping in the Mile High City!

Danielle wrote me the other day about the weather in Denver, "It seemed a little weird to be thinking about soup since the temperature outside was in the 70s, but we love soup so it worked!"

I'd say. She mentioned that given the recent exuberance in Providence, DC, Fayetteville, that her soup swap last Saturday felt, well, maybe a bit meager. But you know what I say to that, BULLOCKS! It is a lovely thing indeed to get together with a few friends, even one single friend and trade some home-cooked food. "We had fun chatting it up and eating snacks, with the actual swap being a quick exchange at the end."

They will be looking forward to joining us next January 23rd for a second Swap in Devner. If you live out that way, we've got addresses and they are "are determined to spread the word for the next Denver Soup Swap!" We hope you'll find them on our list next year and send out an email to join them.

Horray for Denver Soup Swap!