One of the projects I’ve been working on is the Queens Swap, a food swap based in the borough of Queens, NYC. You may have heard about food swapping – this New York Times article talks about it, and this piece was one of the things that inspired me to start a food swap here in Queens. I asked my friends Judith and Charlene if they’d like to help organize it, and lo, the Queens Swap was born.
Basically, attendees will swap food for food and have fun while doing it. It’s exciting to think that a bottle of my vin d’orange or homemade vanilla extract could be traded for something equally artisanal and yummy.
Queens Swap is fortunate to be partnering with The Queens Kickshaw, a new cafe in Astoria that sells seriously kickass coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches (try the Gouda!). The owners, Ben and Jen, have put their heart and soul into this place, so it’s fitting that people will bring food they’ve put their heart and soul into as well.
Now, what can you swap? Here’s the rundown: You can swap anything you want, but it must be made, grown, or foraged by you, personally. It also must be packaged appropriately (city food safety rules). More specifics can be found on the What to Swap page on the Queens Swap website.
We’ve set up an Eventbrite invitation to manage the event, and for this inaugural swap we are limiting it to 20 swappers. So, if you would like to attend, please register soon! You can either click the link above or use the event widget in the sidebar. And if you don’t make it into this swap, we plan to have another in July.
As of this writing, over half the tickets are already spoken for, so they are going quickly. It’s all very exciting!
You can also find the Queens Swap on Facebook and Twitter, as well as the swap website.
