Sara on Soupergirl

“The go-to story about Soupergirl is that I was on a plane, reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and said, 'This is it. This is what I need to do.’ I had been ready to leave my job for a long time and did not want to get another desk job. This is going to sound extremely melodramatic, but when I was a sophomore in high school, I used to say that I was going to kill myself the night of college graduation. All I saw ahead of me was this life of becoming a lawyer or some other miserable profession where you sit at your desk all day, killing yourself and working for the weekends. I always thought that I was meant to do something different. Not that I am so narcissistic as to think that I am so special, but I was never meant to be on the typical working path.

"For me, my path turned out to be soup. I was so profoundly moved by the importance of the local food movement. I felt the urgency of it and how food impacts everything from poverty to health to the environment. Since reading that book, I have never thought so much about food in my life. I started doing some brainstorming about food and Soupergirl was born. My Mom, Soupermom, and I do this together. She has always made amazing soups. Her soups are cooked from the soul. We did not go to the Culinary Institute and I love that about us. We are just making homemade soup...a massive amount of homemade soup and delivering it around the city. The other thing is that I am very into healthy food and all of our soups are vegan. Our weekly emails also include health tips from Soupermom. We like to say that our soups are really good and really healthy, but you won’t notice they’re healthy.

"I was excited to start Soupergirl in D.C., as I grew up in the area. D.C. is a very politically aware crowd and local food is a very relevant topic now. I talk about local food here and people are constantly, like, 'I’m right there with you!' I know we have kind of a bad reputation in D.C. We don’t have the best fashion sense and people think we’re kind of square, but it is a really warm place. I hate calling it a small town, but I do feel part of a community of locavores and people who care about our community."

Learn more about Soupergirl and Soupermom here.