Soup Swap!!

Bring a pot, leave with dinner plans

Oakland gets a very practical kind of cozy on Sunday, November 15, when Local Economy hosts a soup swap from 2 pm to 3:30 pm.

The setup is simple. Make 4 quarts of a soup you love, or at least one you feel good about sharing. Pack it into 4 separate containers, label the ingredients, and bring it in. Frozen ahead of time is fine too.

Then everyone talks soup. Why this recipe. Where it came from. What makes it worth eating on a cold night. After that, numbers get pulled and folks take turns choosing soups to bring home. With luck, you walk out with 4 different quarts made by 4 different people.

There are no booked performers here, unless you count the cooks telling the story behind the pot. That is part of the charm. Local Economy has the right feel for this kind of thing, neighborly, casual, and easy to settle into for an hour or so.

This one is for people who like soup, like sharing food, and are open to a few new flavors. You might find a family recipe, a freezer staple, or something someone has been trying to perfect for years.

The idea has some history too. Member Christine Hyung Oak Lee has wanted to do this since hearing about a Seattle soup swap from the late 90s, started by Knox Gardner after too many leftovers and one very soup filled winter.

If your stock pot has been waiting for a reason, this is it. Details and sign up are on the event page.

This is for people who love soup. Who might have adventurous palates. Who like being cozy. And want to learn something new.
If you sign up, you’re on the hook to 4 quarts of your favorite or near-favorite soup. Then, you package the soup in 4 different containers and label it with ingredients. You could even gussy them up, if you want. (You can bring your soup pre-frozen, too!)
On November 15, you bring that soup to Local Economy to meet other people who have brought 4 quarts of soup. We review the soup. We share why we brought THAT soup.
And then we pull numbers, like a fantasy sports draft. And in turns, we grab the soups we want. The idea is that we each leave with 4 different quarts of soup.
Member Christine Hyung-Oak Lee has been meaning to do this since 1998. In the middle of a cold Seattle winter, a friend-of-a-friend named Knox Gardner got sick of eating vast amounts of soup and soup leftovers. So he decided to do a soup swap similar in the manner of a cookie swap. And a tradition was born!