[OK this may be the excuse I need to go check out the Hull-House soup event. I’m just reposting the announcement in full from the Advocates for Urban Agriculture  Google group, as they seem to not have updated their web site in a while.]

Calling all home preservationists, chefs, and lovers of jam!

Summer Jam Off
at Re-Thinking Soup
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
12pm-1:30pm
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum 
800 S. Halsted St., Chicago 
FREE

Preserving fruits and vegetables is the surest way to be able to eat local and sustainable food throughout the year, and also “preserves” a long tradition of home economics.  At the “Hull-House Kitchen Preservation Fundraiser” on July 21st during Re-thinking Soup, local chefs and food preservationists will donate jars of their preserved fruits and jams.  Attendees at the day’s soup conversation will be the judge of whose preserves are the tastiest.  Jams and vegetables from the garden will be sold to raise funds for the future meetings of the Re-thinking Soup series.  

How to Participate in the Jam Off

Do you preserve your own fruits and vegetables at home?  Join the friendly Jam Off contest by donating two jars of your favorite homemade jam.  One jar will be entered into our tasting contest and the other will be sold to raise money for the Hull-House Kitchen (2nd jar optional).  There will be one sweet and one savory category.  Special prizes go to the top jams in each category!

To enter, please bring your jams to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, 800 S Halsted, by MONDAY, JULY 20 at NOON.  The museum is open Tuesday – Friday from 10-4pm and Sunday 12-4pm.  Please leave the following information with your jams:  name, jam name/type, phone number, email.  Then join us on Tuesday for the celebration!

If you cannot make this deadline but would still like to participate, or if you have questions about the Jam Off, please contact Tara Lane atlane_tara@hotmail.com

More about Hull-House Kitchen: Re-thinking Soup:  
July 21st will be the last Re-thinking Soup before our summer hiatus. Hull-House Kitchen will briefly close its doors to evaluate the program and test out new recipes. Please join us when we reopen our doors for more soup and conversation in the Fall.  Give us your feedback and comments about your experiences at Re-thinking Soup so that we can plan, scheme, and devise new ways of opening the table and the conversation to new ideas and new people.

Gather every Tuesday to eat delicious, healthy soup and have fresh, organic conversation about many of the urgent social, cultural, economic, and environmental food issues facing us all.  Please join us in the historic Residents’ Dining Hall, where Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B.DuBois, Gertrude Stein and other important social reformers met to share meals and ideals, debate one another, and conspire to change the world. Activists, farmers, doctors, economists, artists, and guest chefs will join us each week to present their ideas and projects.

This event is free to attend.  Donations accepted.