National Soup Swap Day: January 23, 2007

Get out your calendars and rinse off those spoons! National Soup Swap Day will be held officially in Seattle, Boston, and DC on Tuesday, January 23, 2007... And guess who's hosting the first official DC Soup Swap? That's right, the Gracious Bowl!

This grassroots event is going national! After doing my usual check-in in over at BlogHer, I was lucky enough to come across Kalyn Denny's coverage of a soup swap post by Seattle writer and ukulele player Pam Mandel at Nerd's Eye View. Instantly smitten with the idea, I wrote a comment, emails were forwarded and exchanged, and BAM! National Soup Swap Day was declared.

Turns out the the soup swap idea was born a couple of years ago from the brain of bike enthusiast and fellow souplover Knox Gardner.

Instead of simply hoarding all the delicious soup for ourselves I suggested we somehow use this soupy celebration to help a charity or two. After confirming with the Capital Food Bank that homemade soup donations can't be accepted, we decided participants will bring canned soup along with their own concoctions.

"But, on a Tuesdaaay!?" you ask. Right, well, soup swap is on a weeknight to make a point. This is a relatively quick gathering. A little wine, some nibbly things, the "telling of the soup" and then we all get 6 different quarts to take home. Everyone's in bed by 10, dreaming about all that good soup they have stocked up til March. See, isn't that fun and easy?

If you're in the DC area and you'd like to participate in our swap, shoot us an email and we'll give you the details on when, where, and how.

As for all you other cities... you know who you are... Richmond, Raleigh, Baton Rouge, Atlanta, New Orleans, Lafayette, Cincinatti, Baltimore... it's time to REPRESENT! The girls at the Gracious Bowl want to see and hear about your soup swapping that Tuesday! For more information on how to hold your very own gathering, check out Knox's official site, www.soupswap.com.