Today’s Spotlight is Soup & Bread, a community meal project and hunger-relief fundraiser that serves donated soup and bread to all comers from their location at Chicago’s Hideout.

Soup is like Chili, but not. With this in mind, do you feel your organization has an advantage or disadvantage in competing in this year’s Hashbrown?

Chili is a totally legitimate subcategory of soup. Both are hearty, filling, cheap, and often prepared over low heat in large quantities. So, yes, I think we may have an edge on the competition. There is even a chapter on chili in the Soup & Bread Cookbook — and we’re going to adapt one of the recipes from that chapter for the Hashbrown.

In what ways does your chili recipe embody your organization?

Our chili recipe was originally prepared for a Soup & Bread we staged in Seattle in 2011, by an artist friend named Sarah Kavage. Sarah and I met in the summer of 2010 in Chicago, when she was in town working on an art project involving commodities trading and wheat futures. For that project she had 1000 bushels of wheat milled into flour and then gave it away to people all over Chicago with the request that they cook something with it and let her know the result. In other words, we were two people ridiculously obsessed with giving away food to nourish others and tracking the connections created by that act, so we bonded. Sarah’s recipe also scales up or down easily and is basically idiot proof. All of these are key elements of Soup & Bread.

Which celebrity would you most like to share a bowl a chili with and why?

Ummm. Willie Nelson? He’s from Texas and for some reason I have a hunch he knows something about chili.

Do you have any words of warning to your competitors?

No. We love them all and are just sorry that of course they will not win.

What does Spudnik Press love about Soup & Bread?

Soup & Bread wows Spudnik with the way they embrace the role of fun in hunger-relief. They remind us that food serves more purposes than filling our bellies, and plays a key role in community and camaraderie. Plus, the cross over with what we do here at Spudnik! They’ve got a great cookbook and sales support their work. Learn more about Soup & Bread!