Soup cooks, Jan. 12

Here’s who we’ve got warming up for January 12:

Art and Chelsea Jackson, of the blog — and soon-to-be bakery, Pleasant House

Michael Slaboch, from archival record label Numero Group

Christopher Sullivan, who is, thus far, a man of mystery has been waiting tables at Blackbird for 7 years and is looking forward to opening his own restaurant in 2011

Niall Munnelly, who describes himself as “another aspiring musician with a desk job … constantly looking for ways to add more beer to his diet.”

Writer/bartender Camille Severino — who does double duty as the organizer of the annual jambalaya cookoff at Fitzgerald’s

and Hull-House executive chef Tara Lane, the current force behind Re-Thinking Soup

Tara’s participation is a bit of happy synergy, as I’m slated to speak at Re-Thinking Soup on Tuesday, Jan. 11. Don’t have enough free soup in your life? Come on over. It’s from noon to 1 in the museum’s historic Residents Dining Hall — the same dining hall where Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, and Gertrude Stein once met, supped, and schemed to uplift the masses/monkeywrench the capitalist machine. I’ll be talking about soup, community building, and who knows what all else.

Also — more synergy — someone else will be wielding a ladle on Michael Slaboch’s behalf, as he’ll be busy in the DJ booth next Wednesday, spinning classic tracks from Numero’s catalog of 60s and 70s soul for your soup-eating enjoyment.

We’ll also have bread from La Farine and the baking class at the Illinois Institute of Art Culinary Program. And maybe some surprise treats to boot.

All donations raised on the 12th go to Ravenswood Community Services. I spent some time in their community kitchen recently, and will have more on what they do posted here soon.