soup swap 2010 was a success in albany ny! we had 26 soups (listed below). i made it a point to have everyone log their soups in a spreadsheet. that is one little detail i have been forgetting about every year. learning from the past? yes! and loving it! another thing was asking a few people to bring their cameras. i think they would have brought them anyway. i love hosting soup swaps and potlucks, but it gets kind of chaotic trying to keep things on track while documenting the process. i had the point and shoot camera hiding out in my apron, and you can see our version of the day here. check out sébastien’s version here. he takes great photos!

skfl and i bought a house at the end of november, and this was the first time people were seeing it. my goal was to have the dining room finished by the time of the swap. unfortunately working on making our walls better has been taking way more work than i ever planned on. my poor shoulder needed a break after painting the bedroom. plus joint compound sand is some of the worst stuff ever. i want to pick up the project again after we can open the windows. repairing the kitchen walls almost did me in last month. (i barely documented that process because it was SO awful). anyway, the robin’s egg blue color i was going for in the kitchen looks great in the background of some photos. and i especially love it with the red some gals were wearing.

back to the swap! the energy in the room was wonderful. everyone was so grateful to be there and meet new people while talking soup. i scheduled the event from 2-4 pm, and when we hadn’t starting talking about our soups around 2:45, i got nervous. but the whole thing ended at 4:05, and i couldn’t believe it! my project management skills are much better than i give myself credit for. speaking of project management, 5 people from work even showed up with their soups! i am lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. i really felt great yesterday.

another thing we will need to be prepared for next year is the amount of booze to have on-hand. we went through 3 bottles of prosecco, 2.5 bottles of red wine, and 1 case of beer. oh, and the cheese wafers i talked about in my last post will totally be making a repeat performance next year. those things were off the hook! they were like homemade cheez-its. yum.

we tried something new this year, and went online to choose names instead of picking numbers out of a bowl. that was fun! i wonder why this guy was highlighted in that shot. i originally started numbering pieces of paper and adding compliments and positive messages, but that got to be too time consuming. there is always another way. i think that is one of my favorite things to do in life…finding another way to do something.

thanks to knox for coming up with this awesome idea. thanks to skfl for being patient and helping to make this swap happen. thank you to the almost foodies peeps who showed up. thank you to my work homies for being excited and coming over. thanks to my new friends (you probably don’t know that we are now friends…like it or not!) for representing. i am grateful to have all of you in my life. yesterday totally rocked. i am one lucky gal. did i already say that? well i mean it. i need to wrap this up and make some dinner. we already had soup for lunch!

here are the soups we swapped yesterday:

▪    apple parsnip
▪    broccoli leek soup
▪    butternut squash
▪    chicken gumbo
▪    chicken tortilla soup
▪    coconut/peanut moroccan stew
▪    corn chowder
▪    curried red lentil soup with sweet potato + greens
▪    french onion
▪    heuvos flamencos
▪    homestyle organic potato w/ garlic
▪    kale + roasted vegetable
▪    lamb stew with turkish spices
▪    north african spiced soup
▪    peppered celeriac with chestnuts
▪    poblano corn chowder
▪    sausage + kale
▪    sausage vegetable
▪    smoked black bean soup
▪    smokehouse potato leek
▪    squash pear curry bisque
▪    squash sweet potato + carrot soup
▪    the most delicious split pea soup in the known universe
▪    tortellini + italian sausage
▪    vegan curried lentil
▪    watercress + potato / zucchini carrot