Soup Clubs Feed the Need to Try New Recipes

Soup clubs feed the need to try new recipes

Posted: Jan. 12, 2010
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Nancy Stohs

January is National Soup Month, but at Templeton Middle School in Sussex, every week is soup week.

Each Thursday throughout the school year, four to six members of the Soup Club haul in slow cookers full of homemade soup, plus assorted breads and desserts. The potluck lunch, set up in a room off the media center, is open to the 25 or so fellow club members, who rotate as soup cooks.

Sometimes the soups follow a theme - Mexican, fall and "around the world" are past themes - and members coordinate by e-mail to avoid duplication and ensure that each offering includes a vegetarian soup, a chicken soup, a beef soup and a non-dairy option, said Anita Paque, library media specialist at the school. Cooks are told to make enough for each person to try one cup.

It's a great way to socialize with colleagues and try out new recipes, and it's a weekly break from having to pack a lunch, Paque said.

She talked it up so much that her sister, Tina Rettler, initiated a similar club when she worked at a Target distribution center in Oconomowoc. She took the tradition with her 2 1/2 years ago to Madison Area Technical College, where she teaches supervisory management and is the curriculum consultant in the school's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Soup Club there meets at least once a month, sometimes more, Rettler said. Two people bring soup, one person brings bread or another "go-along," and a fourth brings a miscellaneous item - a fruit plate or dessert or special salad. The group of a dozen or so includes faculty members, administrators and support personnel.

"It provides a chance for our team to sit down and hear about what's happening in each other's lives," Rettler said. "We're so busy here. People share what movies they've seen or books they've read or trips they've taken, things that wouldn't come up in the normal work day."

And the student interns are always invited. "It's a good chance for us to feed them," she said.

It's also an opportunity to share a diversity of backgrounds, she said, mentioning a colleague from New Mexico and another from Texas who've cooked up favorite regional soups. "It's fun, it's great," Rettler said.

And it's contagious.

A former Target co-worker of Rettler's, Stephanie Pederson, took the concept with her when she left to join the Wisconsin Department of Justice as a law enforcement educational consultant.

It was a frigid, late-winter day when she proposed a soup potluck to her small Training and Standards Bureau of about 15 people. Once she'd convinced them she meant homemade soup - not canned - they were in.

Potlucks now take on various themes and are held about once a quarter, more as a team-building exercise, said Pederson, who commutes to Madison from the Town of Brookfield.

For National Vanilla Ice Cream Day one July, they did ice cream sundaes with all the fixings. One fall, they brought in brats, buns, sauerkraut, German potato salad for an Oktoberfest potluck. This past Christmas, they asked everyone to bring a traditional dish for whatever holiday they celebrate.

"We try to keep it creative and fun," Pederson said.

One time the entire justice department held a heritage potluck. "We had Native American food, we had soul food, we had different kinds of German food," she recalled.

As foods go, soup lends itself particularly well to communal meals. Who doesn't like soup? The varieties are endless, it reheats (and stays warm) well, and it can accommodate a wide array of tastes and dietary needs. There are brothy soups, cream soups, chowders, stews, chilies. Cold soups, hot soups. Spicy, herby, sweet soups.

You can make it BYOM (bring your own mug) if you wish. Furnish crackers or toppings or not.

Just don't forget the ladles.

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Here's one soup served at last week's Soup Club potluck at Templeton Middle School. It was brought by Rebecca Abler and is one of the recipes she uses in her Family and Consumer Education classes. Soup recipes typically are doubled or tripled for the potluck.

Buffalo Chicken Soup
Makes 6 servings
2 small onions, chopped

4 ribs celery, chopped

½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine

½ cup flour

1 ½ cups milk

1 ½ cups chicken broth

4 cups diced cooked chicken

½ cup buffalo wing sauce (or less to taste)

8 ounces processed cheese, diced

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon celery salt

1 teaspoon garlic salt

In pot, sauté onions and celery in butter until tender. Stir in flour until smooth and cook 1 minute. Gradually stir in milk and broth; cook, stirring frequently, until mixture has thickened. Stir in remaining ingredients and simmer, stirring occasionally, until cheese has melted.