Double trouble with Soup & Bread: 1/30/13 & 1/31/13

First things first: Earlier this year I commissioned my friend Dmitry Samarov to create a painting of the scene at Soup & Bread. He brought it to me on Wednesday, and it is perfect. I have never owned a piece of original art before, and when Dmitry delivered it into my hands I felt like Peggy Guggenheim. Would you, too, like to become a patron of the arts, with a painting of the person, pet, or landscape of your choice? Get in touch with him. You won’t be sorry.

Here’s a documentary take on the soup scene on January 30, when our cooks were for the most part drawn from the ranks of the culinary chat site LTH Forum. Valiant organizer Jen (who herself created a devastatingly silken edamame soup topped with beer-braised pork belly)  has sent along most of their recipes, and I’ll get those up soon(er or later). But you can follow along with their adventures in cooking and planning here as well. We also had soup from Cedar Valley Sustainable Farms‘ Beth and Jody Osmund, instigators of the now-monthly Soup & Bread: Ottawa, and help from some superefficient volunteers from Lakeview Pantry, on whose behalf we raised $711 — or enough to buy 7,000 pounds of food. Many thanks to them, to DJ Sarah Gardiner, and, as ever, to the generous bakers at La Farine and Publican Quality Meats for the bread.

The very next night Sheila and I packed up the car and sped out west to FitzGerald’s, for the first-ever Soup & Bread: Berwyn. It was 2 degrees outside, but inside the SideBar all was cozy and warm, with elegant smoked eggplant soup from Autre Monde, minestrone from neighboring Capri Ristorante, savory beer-and-cheese soup from Big Guys Sausage Stand, and a tasty vegan potato soup from the nascent Sugar Beet Co-Op, among others. Seriously, we didn’t do much but give them some advice and graphics help. They did it all themselves! And raised a whopping $874 for the CBS Anti-Hunger Foundation, a 25-year-old organization serving more than 200 families every week in Berwyn/Cicero/Stickney. Look for Soup & Bread: Berwyn to return the last Thursday of the month through the winter, at least.

Coming up this week: Soups from “Down Under.” On February 6 we’ll have soups of the southern hemisphere (or just the south side) from Simon Tankard, Richard Stacewicz, Dan Miller, David Kodeski, Diane Galleher, and Bonnie Tawse. Our DJ is Jim Becker. Pay-what-you-can donations benefit the Chicago Help Initiative. See you then!