Recap: Soup & Bread January 3!

When we brought Soup & Bread back after the pandemic as a monthly, rather than weekly, happening, I wondered if we’d done the right thing. People were (rightly) still covid-wary. It seemed like maybe the moment for such haphazard gatherings had passed, as the world moved solidly into an RSVP-only, app-mediated, and socially distanced era. The meals we hosted last winter were lovely, and in my memory very chill — plenty of room for all, no running out of food. I expected this year to be more of the same.

I was wrong.

Our first Soup & Bread of 2024 smashed all expectations. According to the door clicker there were just 85 attendees, but we raised more than $1,000 for the Pilsen Food Pantry. We ran out of bread! And most of the soup. It was a joy to reconnect with S&B regulars and to welcome new participants to the table. Thank you, times 1,000, to all the cooks — Sarah Dandelles, Molly Schemper, Allison Scott (and George), Ethan Fischer and Robin and Urban Canopy, Ashley Simone, and Etta Worthington. Thank you to our wonderful bread donors at Publican Quality Bread and the good people of Janie’s Mill, who are sponsoring their Soup & Bread donation. Thank you to DJ John Soss, to everyone at the Hideout, to Melissa Thornley for the sweet pix, and to YOU, for coming, for eating, and sharing space with us again.

Next month’s Soup & Bread happens on February 7 at the Hideout. Doors at 5:30; soup at 6. We have a full slate of soup cooks, including Ann Cibulskis, Cinnamon Cooper, Axios reporter Monica Eng, Tatum Evans (from Janie’s Mill), Ashley Huerta, John McKevitt (with his signature Wisconsin beer-cheese soup), Julie Sampson, Twilight Kitchen’s Christopher Sullivan, and Rebecca Wilson. We’ll have more bread next month, with donations from Middlebrow along with PQB. And our guest DJs Jeremy and Gwen Lemos are twice as nice as well. Donations from next month’s event go to the Soup for the Soul project in North Lawndale.

See you then! And in the meantime, please please come out and join us on January 27 at the Hideout for the launch of our spinoff, SOUP & THREAD. I’m reposting that info below.

This year we are partnering with artist Andrea Jablonski and expanding into textiles with the launch of Soup & Thread, a monthly series of sewing bees at community spaces around town. Come sew with us as we stitch the history of Soup & Bread into the world’s largest soup-themed quilt (or tablecloth, or picnic blanket – depending on how you look at it). Many hands make light work, and we are going to need all the help we can get as we embark on this audacious quest.

We will provide all materials and, of course, a light snack of soup and bread courtesy of our friends at Urban Canopy and Middlebrow. We’ll be hosting gently facilitated conversations around food and community as we sew, all of which will feed into our final project: a gallery installation of the quilt and supporting materials in the fall of 2024.

Our first bee happens Saturday, January 27, at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia in Bucktown. The second takes place Saturday, February 17, at the Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange, 2124 W. 82nd Place in Auburn Gresham. We will be scheduling additional events through the spring and summer; if you know of a community space that would like to host a bee, please get in touch! And follow @soup_and_thread on Instagram for updates.

Soup & Thread is made possible by a grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. All Soup & Bread and Soup & Thread events are pay what you can and family friendly.