Preserve Swap
What a night! Our first preserve swap – in the middle of winter when many are at their lowest inventory all year of preserved goodness. It was awesome.
Dana and I showed up early – Emily was there to greet us with a smile. We spread our buttons out, dressed up “The Dude” (he’s a dummy that lives in the woman’s bathroom. We were ready to go.
There were a few things that really worked for us at the event, I think the most important were:
- We kept it simple. Show up, bring what you can and introduce yourself until 9 or so and scope out the room for things you might want.
- The event required you to interact and meet other people.
The evening started slowly. A few people came in, we tentatively put our jars on the bar and hung out with friends and their jars. We weren’t checking out each others products yet and each were in a polite stage of introductions. The feeding frenzy had yet to begin.
There were about 6 or 7 of us there when Chef Kyle Deming walked in (we wrote about him and the company he is running with his wife here) with a tray in hand. He placed it on the bar, asked if we would watch it and left to ‘go get his jars.’ Kyle had brought a tray of hand-cured bacon and smoked hocks. This pulled everyone out of their seats and it became instantly acceptable to check out what everyone else had.
We brought about a dozen jars. I figured we should bring a lot in the event that anyone was left at the end without a trading partner. This was good in theory – we had no idea that people would show up with cases. Yes, cases. I would guess that there were about 30 swappers and 250-300 jars of food. It was ridiculous (in the best way).
I was pretty excited about our button design – a mashup of the logo of the Avro Arrow and one of our WellPreserved logos…
The bar continued to fill with people from all over (I think Mary Ann gets the prize of coming the furthest as she drove from Acton). People were amazingly friendly, excited about what they brought and were willing to share.
I can’t even begin to list what was in all the jars (we’ll share our personal haul tomorrow). There were the usual suspects plus a bunch of things I’d never heard of. There was even maple syrup, cakes in jars (not preserved but awesome!) and our friend Jesse presented us with a candle in an old Ball Jar as a hosting gift (she’s super sweet).
The Avro were also mighty hosts and we’re very thankful to have been able to take over their space for a night like that.
It was a lot of fun seeing people walk down the street, and stop in their tracks when they saw the crowded bar and what was in it.
If anyone has pictures that they’d like to share, the easiest way would be our Facebook page which is here.
The value of this type of meeting, beyond the people (which is the absolute best part) is getting to try things you may not have made before or try a different version of something you normally make and learn from other people’s experience. It also adds a lot of variety to your larder with minimal effort.
I hope people had a lovely time – I can’t believe I didn’t get to meet everyone (if there was a regret, that’s it). There will be more events this year so can a few extra jars. Knowing some of the people who showed up this time I know that their cases could easily become skids of food next time (joking…sort of).
Comments
What a great idea. I would love to do this in ATL..:) can’t wait to see the goodies!
This looked like so much fun. I was just in Toronto last week. Next year I’ll have to time my visits better!
Can’t wait to hear the varieties of jam being swapped. Always great to get some new flavor combination ideas.
holy shimoli! that looks like fun! good job guys!
My plan to be there went out the window because a friend needed some assistance getting her shop painted -the ‘pro’ painter she hired failed to show up and she’d already torn out all the fixtures. Now I know you wouldn’t have minded if I showed up late and covered in paint but I would have had to come empty handed ( didn’t bring my jars to the painting party sadly) so there wasn’t much point.
Glad to hear there’s plans for another!
Our local cooperative extension agent and I have been kicking around this idea for awhile. I’ll have my master preserver certification March 9 and this is one way to pay back my volunteer hours. One swap I attended handed out tickets based on the number of jars you brought: white for pints, red for quarts. You swapped pints for pints and quarts for quarts and when you ran out of tickets your swap was done. Not a hard and fast rule, more like a guideline. Theoretically this way everyone went home with the equal amount of jars they brought. It came out pretty close at the end of the night. Nobody went away short changed.
what a phenomenal idea. wandered here from your twitter. fabulous way to liven up the dreary winter months. especially in TO.
You guys rock!! What a wonderful thing to organize and be a part of…we hope to come out one of these times. The swaps are a fabulous way to meet like minded people and share/trade some great eats. We hosted our first canning party/swap in Nov. and did it using tickets. It was so much fun we hope to do it every year at least once (maybe twice a year). Cheers!
So wanted to come, but couldn’t due to other commitments! Next year for sure! Looks like it was a very tasty blast!
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Hello! I’m curious if there are any preserve or food swaps planned for the fall in the Toronto area… I can’t seem to find info about anything upcoming…
Sar,
Absolutely! We’ll keep you in the loop – in fact, I’ll start a sign-up list shortly. We’ll have at least two between now and next spring. More info will come.
When we hear about others, we’ll also share here!
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