Soup Swap.

I love hosting. I love hosting so much, I have been known to act as hostess at other people's parties. As my apartment is quite small, I am unable to host parties of the scale of summer 2007 at 1023 (Also known as the summer in which I scored a free keg... that was a great summer). Still, I do miss the hosting aspect- and getting friends together- that is also nice. So when I saw this post, I felt as though the author was speaking to me. I heard the calling, and spent that afternoon busily drafting an open letter to friends (as well as friends of friends) and day-dreaming of soup.

I knew that I had to act quickly- as it is March, which means April is right around the corner, and then, before you know it, it's summer and no one wants to eat soup- unless it's a gazpacho.

If I were to host Soup Swap again for the first time I would scale down the amount of soup to 4 quarts. I made everyone bring 6. As it turns out, 6 quarts of soup is a lot- 1.5 gallons, at least 2 batches, 24 cups. Anyway you look at it... it's a lot of soup.

The turnout was perfect in the sense that there were 6 soups- so everyone got one of everything. I hear-tell of other Soup Swaps that get all competitive and people's feelings get hurt if their soup is chosen last. Not this one- it was all smiles and grins. People even took the opportunity to name their soups. Notable names: Fenntastic (beans and veggies with fennel), Poet's Soup (potato and leek- cheap ingredients- which is why poets make it), and Complete Protein (beans and bulgur=see name).

For more information on official rules and regulations of Soup Swap as well as perhaps finding an open Soup Swap in your neighborhood, go to www.soupswap.com/news. In fact, I just checked, and there's one coming up in April... Perhaps I should have advertised mine on the website... except that (as previously stated) my apartment is small and I'm wary of strangers.