Soup & Bread To Go: It Worked!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out last week for the first night of Soup & Bread To Go: Pandemic Edition 2.0. Honestly, when we first started talking about this I wasn’t sure if anyone would want it. Could a takeout version of Soup & Bread be anything but a sad, dim copy of the real thing? But it worked! For me, getting the chance to connect even briefly with so many smiling, masked faces, was a balm. And when later at home I tucked into my own bowl of Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup, I loved knowing that I was sharing that meal with people across the city. I hope it worked for you as well.

Even better: We raised a sweet $600 in soup sales and donations in January, and donated it to our friends at Soup for the Soul, a weekly soup meal distributed out of North Lawndale’s historic Stone Temple Baptist Church. We also had a bunch of cabbage soup left over, so we sent Pastor Reshorna Fitzpatrick home with two dozen quarts of that as well, which she distributed to North Lawndale families.

Speaking of that cabbage soup, we are so sorry to report that there was a miscommunication, and we’re not able to share the recipe with you after all. It’s going in the forthcoming Lula Cafe Cookbook (!!), so it’s staying under wraps until the book comes out. Look for the book — and the recipe — next year from Phaidon. But, happily, the recipe for Swim Cafe’s Red Pepper Soup is not only in *our* cookbook, it’s also available right here, on our site.

Some housekeeping: We did have a handful of no-shows last week, and unfortunately we’re not able to make arrangements for you to pick up soups outside of that Wednesday evening window. If you were among those unable to come to the Hideout, please get in touch (soupnbread10 [at] gmail.com) and let us know if you’d like us to roll your soup order over to next month.

Speaking of next month! The next Soup & Bread To Go is Wednesday, February 16. We’ll announce the soups on the menu at the end of next week, and open up preorders then. In the meantime, check out this wonderful piece Louisa Chu — an occasional Soup & Bread cook herself — wrote about our relaunch for the Tribune. Thank you Louisa!

And thank you, again, to everyone who pitched in to make this soup reboot happen — in particular everyone at the Hideout, and Sheila Sachs, Ethan Fisher at Urban Canopy, Allison Scott at Floriole, Greg Wade and our friends at Publican Quality Bread, and Pete Ternes and Marissa Venturi at Middlebrow. Marissa wrote me after the fact to say that she used to come to Soup & Bread at the Hideout years ago, before she became a baker, which is just gloriously full circle. We’ve been doing this for thirteen years now and somehow it’s still fostering new connections. It’s like sourdough starter, endlessly replenishing,