Did you know that January is National Soup Month? It’s fitting considering January is the middle of winter and soup is a necessary staple to keep warm. All things considered its the perfect time for a book club soup swap! A soup swap is much like a book — or a cookie — swap, but with soup instead (and a book discussion, of course!). Everyone brings homemade soup to taste and trade at the party, and then everyone gets to take some soup home. For our very first book club soup swap, The Novel Tourist Book Club paired the event with reading and discussing The Wedding Soup Murder while we sampled each other’s favorite family soups.

Between the warmth of the soups and the camaraderie of the club I don’t think we could have found a better way to kick off our bookish activites for the year.  Each member was asked to bring a soup that had meaning to them. This paired perfectly with the themes of family, tradition, and food that run through this cozy mystery. Of course, I drew my inspiration from literature and made Italian Wedding Soup using the family recipe that the author, Rosie Genova, included in her book. Read on for details on how to create your own cozy book club book swap.

The Book: The Wedding Soup Murder

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Author Rosie Genova’s The Wedding Soup Murder is a deliciously cozy murder mystery steeped in Italian family traditions. When food writer Victoria Rienzi returns home to the Jersey Shore to write a new book, learn the family restaurant business, and practice the fine art of Italian cooking, she stirs up more than soup. Shortly after making a thousand tiny meatballs by hand for the family’s famous wedding soup, Victoria finds herself entangled in a murder investigation. Although the wedding went off without a hitch, a body is found on the beach below a high seawall. Perfect for fans of culinary and cozy mysteries, this charming tale combines intrigue, humor, and mouthwatering recipes. P.S. You have got to make the anise cookies!! 

Paired Activity: Book Club Soup Swap

What better way to enjoy a culinary cozy mystery than by hosting a book club soup swap? For our first literary adventure of the year, The Novel Tourist Book Club took inspiration from the book’s warm and hearty setting and gathered to swap our own homemade soups. Each member brought six (6) containers of their soup (four (4) to swap and two (2) for tasting) and copies of their soup recipe for each book club member attendee. Pro tip: Make sure the containers are freezable and all the same size. For consistency, we asked everyone to bring their soup in these containers because we knew they wouldn’t pop open and spill on the way home from the book club soup swap. 

Everyone thought the book club soup swap event was such a fantasticly cozy way to embrace winter and the themes of the book (minus the murder, of course…). It ranks high as one of our club’s favorite book pairings. For a fun twist, you could invite one member to demonstrate how to make their soup.

What You’ll Need For Your Own Book Club Soup Swap:

• Crockpots: You will need enough crock pots for the number of members attending. (I suggest limiting it to no more than twelve attendees). Each crock pot needs to hold only one (1) pint (16ozs) of soup so they do not need to be large. In fact, these dip size crock pots or even something like this three pot crock I got as a gift a few years ago (and use all the time for book club hosting) are perfect. In a pinch, a rice cooker with a slow function would also work. Don’t forget extension cords to enable you to place the crocks in various places around the room.
• Ladles: If your crock pots don’t come with ladles, you’ll need enough for each soup pot. The easiest is to use these disposable one ounce soup ladles because they deliver the perfect portion for the sample containers. Less mess!
• Sampler size containers: These 3-ounce mini soup containers are perfect. They’ll easily hold two 1 ounce scoops of each soup that your members bring for the book club soup swap.
• Small Boxes/bags: These will sit in front of each soup to hold the raffle tickets. If you want to get fancy you could use a pretty soup bowl or mug.
• Printables: You can make your own or download these printables to make it easy.
  • Name Tags: If everyone in your book club doesn’t already know each other well then name tags are a nice touch to foster friendships. There’s nothing worse than wanting to chat with someone but forgetting their name. Name tags make it easy for your new book club members to mingle and feel included.
  • Tasting Card: This is for everyone to keep track of which soups they like the most.
  • Labels for the sample size containers, raffle box and raffle tickets: You’ll put corresponding letters on each sampler container and raffle box so that your book club members will know which soup they are tasting once they get back to their seat. Next, label the raffle box in front of each soup and then use the remaining labels to create the raffle tickets.
  • Soup name cards: Everyone will write their soup title and type (vegetarian, vegan, primary ingredients) on a soup swap name card. Print them on brightly colored cardstock so they stand out. Members will complete and then place these cards in front of crockpot with their soup.
• Menu Board: Lucky me, the coffee shop where my daugher works had just decided to upgrade their menu board and we claimed their old one. It looks like this chalkboard with erasable markers. You could also use a posterboard or regular chalkboard to highlight the soups at your book club soup swap.  It doesn’t need to be fancy!
• Coolers or an extra refrigerator to store the swapping soups until its time to swap.

Setting Up for the Soup Swap:

Start with setting the table for the number of attendees. You’ll need to put a large plate, beverage glass, napkin and a spoon at each seat. Add a plate, a salad bowl, and utensils for bread or salad if you’re choosing to offer these as part of your swap. Finally, a gorgeous (and super easy to make) book page flower arrangment as the centerpiece is the pièce de résistance for a book club soup swap!

Next, arrange the crockpots in a circle around the room so that everyone can move easily from soup to soup. In front of each crock put a soup ladle on a small plate, the raffle box and a stack of sampler cups. Using the printables above or your own version, stick a small label with a unique letter beginning with A on each raffle box. Then, using more of the same small labels affix the corresponding letter to each sample cup. That way when your book club members take their samples back to their seat for tasting they’ll know exactly which soup they are sampling.

Finally, cut the remaining small labels into individual “tickets.” These will be for the raffle. Each person should get at least the same number of tickets as the number of soups each person will take home , but a few more is okay, too.

The last step is to prepare the menu board. Ideally everyone has already told you in advance which soup they are bringing. That way you can create the soup swap menu board as a cute prop before guests arrive. But, if not, just draw menu on the board and list A-? and add the soup names as each person arrives.

How to Run the Book Club Soup Swap:

Arrival:

As your book club members arrive, hand each person a pen, name tag, recipe card with a letter, and the “tickets” with the corresponding letter. Ask them to dump the soup from one of their soup pints into the crockpot with the raffle box that corresponds to the letter on their recipe card. (If the soup is cool, it helps to briefly microwave it so you don’t have to wait too long for it to heat up in the crock pot). Next, ask them to write the details of their soup on the recipe card. When completed, they’ll put the recipe card in front of the crock pot with their soup. Finally, they should stack their containers of soup for swapping in the cooler or refrigerator.

SOUP Tasting:

After everyone has arrived and the soups are warmed up, let the tasting begin! Each person should take their plate with them to the soup area. Beginning with “A”, they’ll ladle a 2 oz sample of each soup into the sample container and one by one fill their plate with soup samples. Back at their seat while tasting each soup they can make a notation on their tasting card about their interest in taking the soup home.

Book Discussion:

Once everyone is seated and digging into their soups, begin the book discussion. Below are some questions to get you started. Each one is intended to help your members get to know each other better. There is a lot to discuss about this cozy mystery, but I can’t figure out how to share them without giving away the book!

Raffle SOUP swap:

After the discussion is over, it’s time for swapping! If they haven’t already, ask everyone to take their tickets and put them into the raffle boxes for the soups they hope to take home. Then, starting with “A” designate someone to choose a ticket from the raffle box (no peeking!). The drawn ticket entitles the winner to claim one container of that soup. Continue to “B” and so on until you’ve given away one container of each type of soup. Then start over and repeat the process until all containers of soup have been given away.

If the plan was that each person will go home with say, four soups, then once someone has won four through the raffle they are out of the swap. If their ticket is drawn again simply discard it and pick a new ticket. After the swap, your book club members may want to trade their winnings with each other. Watch the hilarity ensue as people start trying to bribe each other to get more containers of their favorite soup!

Book Club Discussion Questions:

Start off with an icebreaker question such as “Why did you choose the soup you brought?” This will inspire your book club members to share something personal while also keeping it as light as they’d like. Next move on to other book discussion questions from the silly to the thought-provoking such as:

• Cookies are an Italian wedding tradition. Does your family follow any wedding traditions?
• Vic’s dad likes to bet on the horses. When he finds out he’s going to be a grandpa he bets on the horse “bambino.” If you were to bet on a horse, how would you choose the winner?
• Do/did you have any family members who are super controllilng like Nonna? Did your relationship change when you got to know/understand the person better? What helped you get there?
• Do you think a person’s past directly impacts their future?
• What kind of sleuth are you? Do you like to solve mysteries or do you prefer to let the characters of a book do all the detective work?
• Family bonds and comforts but also sometimes chafes. Do you wish you lived closer to/further from family or is your current proximity just right?
• Be honest – did you figure out who committed the murder? If so, what gave it away for you?

The Soups We Swapped:

I made Nonna’s Famous Italian Wedding Soup – which is sooooo good (especially when you make the meatballs using beef, pork and veal like the author’s mom). Lucky us, the recipe is in The Wedding Soup Murder.

Here are the other soups that were part of our book club soup swap:

• Joanne’s Herbed Meatball Minestrone (Seattle Times)
• Linda’s Slow-Cooker Cauliflower, Potato and White Bean Soup (NY Times)
• Maura’s Creamy Chicken Tortilla Soup (TheCozyCook.com)
• Joanne’s Cream of Parsnip Soup (hers was a family recipe but the linked soup is pretty close)
• LeeAnne’s Italian Pasta and Bean Soup – Pasta e Fagioli (America’s Test Kitchen)
• Barbara’s Tortellini Soup (hers was a family recipe but the linked one is close)
• Akki‘s Green Peas Spice Soup (a family recipe, but the linked soup is similar)
• Debbie’s Split Pea with Ham Soup (adapted from Moosewood Cookbook by adding ham)
• Yasmin’s Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup (Food.com)

Last but not least was the absolute hit of our book club soup swap – host Joanne’s cold Strawberry Soup. It was fruity soup heaven!! Joanne offered this up as desert using the recipe from the cookbook, Lost Restaurants of Philadelphia. I added to the desert options by making Nonna’s Ricotta Cookies. You can find the recipe in the The Wedding Soup Murder. If you are like me and don’t like didn’t black licorice don’t let that stop you from using anise. I almost skipped it, but decided to be authentic and follow the recipe exactly. I am so so so glad I did. Delicious, delicious!

I hope your book club soup swap is a huge hit! Don’t forget to take lots of pictures! Share the joy by posting on your socials using the hashtag #noveltourist and tagging me @thenoveltourist. I can’t wait to see what you all have cooked up!

For more great bookish activities and literary pairings, be sure to follow The Novel Tourist on Instagram or Facebook. If you live in the Philadlephia area and want to join us on a literary adventure, join The Novel Tourist Bookclub (free!) on Meetup or the Facebook group.