Spring is here (or should be anyway) and that means it's time to say so long to Soup & Bread for the winter. Our final Soup & Bread of the 2013 season is also our most on-mission, with soups inspired by items commonly found on a food pantry shelf. Cooks include Swim Cafe, Mana Food Bar, Hoosier Mama baker Allison Scott, and staff and dietitians from Heartland Alliance's Vital Bridges Center on Chronic Care, which provides supportive services to people living with HIV/AIDS and operates food pantries on the north, west, and south sides of Chicago. As a bonus, it's our now-traditional, annual end-of-season pie night, with a bake sale of pies and other baked goods. Bread, as ever, is donated by Publican Quality Meats, and our DJ this week is our own Lawrence Peters. Pay-what-you-can donations benefit Vital Bridges: http://www.heartlandalliance.org/vital/. Hope to see you there!

The next run of Soup & Bread starts January 2 — our fifth season of soup at the Hideout. And, if you are like us, you cannot believe we have been doing this for FIVE YEARS. That’s a lot of soup under the sound board. Or, something.

In honor of our fifth anniversary season, we’ve decided to shake things up a bit. This year we are assigning each week of soup a theme to inspire you cooks, focus your culinary genius, and hopefully generate a slew of new recipes and, just maybe, material for another book. Some of these themes are culinary. Some are cultural. And some are just … well, you can see for yourself.

To get on the soup schedule, email Martha with your top 3 choices. First come, first to cook.

JAN 2. Green
JAN 9. Four Cs: Cumin, coriander, cardamom, cilantro
JAN 16. Our neighbors to the north
JAN 23. The ocean
JAN 30. Triple B: Beans, beer, and bacon
FEB 6. Down under
FEB 13. Lust, love, and hate
FEB 20. All things cow-nsidered
FEB 27. NYC vs. LA
MAR 6. The ground
MAR 13. Noodles, dumplings, and kreplach
MAR 20. Paris vs. Tokyo
MAR 27. Double A: Alliums and asparagus
APR 3. Chicago vs. Chicago
APR 10. Spring forward
APR 17. TBD


Also: Many of you have expressed interest in helping out on the S&B back end. We need you! If you would like to volunteer to sell books, cut bread, clean pots, or otherwise lend a hand, please get in touch. We will give you a big kiss and put you to work.

Soup & Bread starts January 2 at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, and runs every Wednesday through April 17, 5:30-8. Kids, supervised, are welcome. Pay-what-you-can donations benefit a range of Chicago-area food pantries and hunger relief agencies; to date we have raised more than $30,000.