so this weekend i went to my first food swap, hosted by the From Scratch Club of Albany... the event took place at a tiny, crunchy hippie bakery in town that i'd never heard of - All Good Bakers. it's run by a husband-and-wife hippie team who have an ADORABLE little girl who was handing out cheesecake bites to all of the attendees.. i wanted to eat her instead! so cute. the bakery also prepared delicious, healthful, organic food for us to try. i'll definitely be going back there for lunch some day.
the idea of the food swap is that everyone brings some homemade treats to trade. you can bring as few or as many as you want - it's a one-for-one trade system. when you arrive you display your wares (with samples if possible!) and then browse the tables to see what other people have brought. then you write down your trade offer on a card, and once everyone has seen it all, you approach other cooks/bakers and work out a trade.
i had a great time! i originally made pickles and they turned out great, but i guess they don't keep very long (even in the fridge) so by the time the foodswap rolled around they were already bad... boo!! so at the last minute i whipped up some pesto w/ the basil from my garden, and a jar of stewed cherries (tastes like the inside of cherry pie - yum!). i traded for vodka digestif (vodka infused with herbs- rosemary and thyme, i think - it's DELICIOUS - and the bottle came with recipes so on Sunday we had bloody marys and last night we had vodka tonics), and a jar of blueberry BBQ sauce. also got to take home some leftover sugar cookies from one of the sample plates. yum!
my friend did REALLY well - she brought some jars of homemade salsa, jalapeno jelly, and spicy pickle chips. in return she got a dozen organic eggs from someone's backyard chickens, 2 lbs of beef short ribs from someone's family farm (they run the awesome website www.farmiemarket.com - check it out - they help people connect w/ local farms and Albatogans can get food delivered straight to your home!), espresso brownies with coconut cheesecake frosting, a choco-pecan pie, and her own bottle of the vodka. major score!!
here are pics from the event:
https://www.facebook...214317555269123
and here's a great article about food swaps that my friend found online. we are hosting our own food swap for friends-only in a few weeks - and i am definitely going back to the next one through the From Scratch club!!!
http://www.eatingwel...a_diy_food_swap
anyone else participate in one of these events??
Food Swaps
Started by
kramer
, Jul 19 2011 07:30 PM
4 replies to this topic
#2
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- VibeTribe
- 6,196 posts
Posted 25 August 2011 - 05:26 PM
hosted our first food swap last night! i think it was a big hit 
did a slightly different format than the first one i attended, because everyone brought a good # of portions, so we all got to take home a lot of food - decided not to do a 1:1 swap where you have to find someone to trade with, but instead, just put everything on the table and took turns picking what we wanted. so if you brought 5 things, you got to take home 5 things. there were people who brought enough for everyone, so we just distributed those out at the beginning, and then went from there.
let's see if i can remember everything.....
we made jalapeno-cheddar bread and roasted garlic aioli.
one of my friends stopped through on his way (either to or from) NJ and dropped off a Sausage & Spinach Pie, so we traded a loaf of bread for the pie and sent him on his way
then i made homemade chai tea (two versions - one with regular milk and the other with soy milk - i think i actually preferred it with the soy! yum). that was a BIG hit . shoulda doubled the recipe because we juuuuust barely had enough for everyone to have 1 cup, and it was really well received.
other spoils brought to the throw-down:
-dill pickles
-bread & butter pickles
-"tongue" pickles (describes the shape, not the ingredient. heh! these were long soft strips of pickled cucumber and onion)
-chocolate chip-peanut butter almost-vegan cookie bars
-summer salad with corn, tomato, avocado and creamy italian dressing
-asian quinoa salad with shrimp
-peppery israeli couscous and mushroom salad
-berry applesauce two ways
-roasted corn salsa
-canned/blanched plum tomatoes
-dilly beans
-peach jam
-alcohol-soaked fruit and "special" mini muffins!
i'm sure i'm forgetting something...
but it was all so good!
what a wonderful experience to share with friends. some people requested that we make this a monthly event. i'm stoked to see what people bring to the next one!!!!
did a slightly different format than the first one i attended, because everyone brought a good # of portions, so we all got to take home a lot of food - decided not to do a 1:1 swap where you have to find someone to trade with, but instead, just put everything on the table and took turns picking what we wanted. so if you brought 5 things, you got to take home 5 things. there were people who brought enough for everyone, so we just distributed those out at the beginning, and then went from there.
let's see if i can remember everything.....
we made jalapeno-cheddar bread and roasted garlic aioli.
one of my friends stopped through on his way (either to or from) NJ and dropped off a Sausage & Spinach Pie, so we traded a loaf of bread for the pie and sent him on his way
then i made homemade chai tea (two versions - one with regular milk and the other with soy milk - i think i actually preferred it with the soy! yum). that was a BIG hit . shoulda doubled the recipe because we juuuuust barely had enough for everyone to have 1 cup, and it was really well received.
other spoils brought to the throw-down:
-dill pickles
-bread & butter pickles
-"tongue" pickles (describes the shape, not the ingredient. heh! these were long soft strips of pickled cucumber and onion)
-chocolate chip-peanut butter almost-vegan cookie bars
-summer salad with corn, tomato, avocado and creamy italian dressing
-asian quinoa salad with shrimp
-peppery israeli couscous and mushroom salad
-berry applesauce two ways
-roasted corn salsa
-canned/blanched plum tomatoes
-dilly beans
-peach jam
-alcohol-soaked fruit and "special" mini muffins!
i'm sure i'm forgetting something...
but it was all so good!
what a wonderful experience to share with friends. some people requested that we make this a monthly event. i'm stoked to see what people bring to the next one!!!!
