Duane Hicks
CIBC was a big winner at the inaugural “So You Think You Can Cook . . . Soups On” event yesterday at the Sunset Country Métis Hall here.
“CIBC Savoury Sip” won “People’s Choice Award,” as well as the honour of being “Most Unique Soup.”
Energy Fitness Centre won “Best Soup” with “The Energizer” while the Fort Frances Times won “Healthiest Soup” with its “Extra! Extra! Tasty Soup Here!”
The winners earned healthy food trays for their respective workplaces.
The event, which was attended by 130 people, also raised $570 for local food banks.
Trisha Wood, a registered dietitian with the Valley Diabetes Education Centre here, was among the panel of soup judges and said they had some tough decisions to make.
“It was very hard to pick because there was a lot of really good soups,” she noted.
“A lot of them were tied for second or third, so it kind of made it a little bit tough.”
The other participants—and their soups—included:
•Kitchen Table—“Joan’s Beef Barley”;
•Rainycrest—“Minestrone”;
•93.1 The Border—“The Border Best Chowder”;
•La Verendrye Hospital—“The Kitchen Sink”; and
•Fort Frances High School hospitality class—“Top of the Class” and “Honour Roll Soup.”
“We really liked to see the kids out there cooking,” said Wood. “It was so neat to see the hospitality class out there.”
The first of its kind put on by district dietitians, the soup cook-off aimed to bring awareness to the importance of eating well while promoting March as “Nutrition Month.”
Wood felt the cook-off succeeded in this regard.
“A lot of soups incorporated different ingredients that people have never tried,” she noted, citing the CIBC’s soup has quinoa, a South American grain-like crop, as one example.
“The presentation of the some of the soups was amazing. And we really liked how many of the participants actually put in for the ‘Healthiest Soup,’” added Wood, referring to the fact soup chefs could submit a detailed ingredient list with their soup so as to be judged on that basis.
“We weren’t expecting as many people, but that was our whole point,” Wood reasoned.
“Being dietitians, we want to promote healthy eating and having ‘Healthiest Soup’ was a good way to do that.”
Wood also said organizers were happy with the turnout and the facility, noting that in addition to raising awareness of healthy eating, the event also helped raise awareness of the fact there are four registered dietitians in Rainy River District.
They include herself, Janet Drennan and Megan Bale of the Gizhewaadiziwin Health Access Centre, and Rooksana Randeree with Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc.
