I’m going to be attending the From Scratch Club’s first-ever Schenectady Food Swap this Wednesday, May 16 (more info here), and I’ve been hemming and hawing about what to bring. The rules of the swap are easy: bring six items to swap – they don’t need to be identical. You can bring six of one thing, or one each of six things. Or any other combination of six things, as long as they’re made by you.

At first, I was thinking about baking six loaves of bread. After I stopped laughing hysterically, I had a more rational thought: muffins. But then, I thought – muffins? So boring, right? I need to step it up. So, I settled on BIG muffins. Big Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Muffins with Cream Cheese frosting, to be exact. Something I’d swap for. Something I might keep, now that I think about it.

And since I really like to mix things up, I’ve decided to bring three pairs of giant muffins (wow, that doesn’t sound right), and three containers of Indian-spiced hummus.  You know me and hummus.

I met FSC Christina at yesterday’s Schenectady Greenmarket (they were the day’s Local Expert), and I ran my ideas by her. She told me that cookies and brownies and those kinds of items don’t go over very well at swaps (“it’s not a bake sale”, she said), but that muffins and hummus would be just fine. Christina is wicked cool, and I’m so excited that FSC will be coming to Schenectady! Y’all better give her a warm welcome.

What’s cool about this food swap – since it’s new to Schenectady – is that they’re offering 20 “SWAP Curious” tickets to folks who just want to come and scope out the scene, and be sure they know what they’re doing before getting involved in an actual swap.

Me, I just dive right in the deep end of the cold pool while ripping off the Band-Aids.

As of this writing, there are only 8 SWAP tickets (and 17 “SWAP Curious” tickets) left – GET YOURS HERE

If you’re going to the swap, let me know so I can say hello!