Soup Swap: A Craze that's Sweeping the Nation

I'd like to introduce you to an idea called a "Soup Swap." The name tells it all really, and there are "rules" you can follow or break, but the main point is that you get to come home with some pretty fine booty, ie. six soups made by your friends. If you invite carefully, as I did, the booty is yummy indeed.

Kathy Thompson was kind enough to host the first ever Fayetteville Soup Swap, and she decided to serve her soup to us then and there, which I'd say everyone thouroughly enjoyed considering we started the festivities with a delicious belt of Patron's Añejo. Kathy prepared a wonderful tortilla soup with chicken and tomatoes. Side sprinkles included queso fresco, sour cream, cilantro, avocado and of course home fried corn tortilla strips. As we tucked into our dinners, the so-called "telling of the soup" began with Kathy divulging this fine detail: "Lime oil is my secret." And indeed the fresh, invigorating scent of limes wafted in the air like a walk in Florida groves.



The first soup I decided to try at home was Rob Sharp's tomato okra and chicken, and I coincidentally had some arkansas bacon that Rob's father Frank had given me after a recent tour of the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse. While son's soup heated on the stove, dad's bacon sizzled in the pan alongside some fresh eggs. Jennifer and I enjoyed a lunch of Rob's family favorite soup with a crunchy bacon, egg and cheddar sandwich.

Incidentally, previous soup swap rules suggest giving a door prize to the maker of the last soup picked. Unfortunately, a Scharfenberger chocolate bar didn't seem to assuage. On the way home Rob said, "It was like being in middle school again, like being the last one picked for kickball teams." Tomatoey with an italian herb kick and lots of okra, Rob's soup was just the thing for a cold winter lunch.



Today I rushed back to the office after a noontime meeting and was able to put together a very satisfying lunch for Jennifer and myself. Thanks to Lisa Sharp's borscht, all I had to do was quickly pan fry some smoked pork chops and sliced cabbage in one skillet, and reheat the soup in a small pot. In about fifteen minutes I had the following.



A couple slices of my own rustic bread, along with a dollop of sour cream, and we had a fantastically colorful meal. Lisa's secret to save time: canned sliced beets. As well, she combined efforts from a couple different borscht cooking sessions. Sounds like a great method akin to good cassoulet making...Hmm...I'll have to ask her about making some.

Friday lunch, and Jennifer was preferring hamburger and french fries as fuel to unpack cases and cases of the new spring shoe fashions. As Haley Duke and I listened to Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky on my iPod, the subject was English pizza. After a few minutes, she said, "All right! I've gotta have pizza now." I said, "No, I'm about to go heat up some soup and fry brats. Eat with me." She agreed. Today's soup was Christian and Sabine Borgmann's lemonny lentil with cilantro oil. Hearty and meaty like a lentil soup ought to be, it also had a refined lightness about it that surprised. The flavors melded very well, and Haley and I passed part of our lunch conversation trying to guess at the mysterious simplicity of the soup. To add to our meal, I defrosted some hand made brats Christine Miller and I made a couple weeks prior on a snow day. With a little sautéed kale and bit of my now dry (and slightly disappointing) bread, we enjoyed yet another satisfying lunch on a cold winter's day.



Being a little too busy to make an occasion out of lunch today, I reheated Dede Peters's Chipotle Beef Stew, marked *SPICY*. Indeed it is a bit on the spicy side, I didn't think overly so, but then I have a palette with a high tolerance for hot due to years of eating spicy dishes. The stew offered a nice variety of textures with the addition of hominy, tomatoes and onion. Christian recommended a dollop of sour cream, which with a couple pieces of toasted and buttered brioche, I thoroughly enjoyed my quick meal on the fly. More stew please!



Well, at long last, I've finished all my soups. Tonight, Aaron Rhoades invited me to dinner and had on offer a kind of asiany sea scallop dish that was great. He served them with a salad of mixed greens and a warm orange/onion viniagrette and some soba. I offered to bring my last soup, Emily Loving's Viatnamese Hot and Sour Soup. It was an adaptation from Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffrey Alford and Naomiand Duguid; it ROCKED. I'd have to say it was my favorite soup of the swap, and it went very nicely as part of a pan-asian meal along side a Saki Martini.




Unfortunately for Christine, I can't give a full write-up about her Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. Since I'd had it on a few occasions already and knew how much I liked it, I "graciously" decided not to choose it so others could enjoy. Christian can claim that he must not really like South Louisianna cooking, but I know it was delicious as always, AND hers was the first soup chosen...so you be the judge. Click here for Christine's recipe.

As well, you'll just have to cook my soup for yourself.