zuppa con chicas de dawn!

"Hey, who are all these women? Is that at Dawn's house??" 

 

Hey, good eye! Yes, you're spot on with the locale, though you should recognize Yvette, on the left, from the swap party. The other three are new to this event. They are Dora, Julie, and Bridget, and they were three of the four cheftestants this time around. Surprisingly, that's the order of their placements in the soup-judging!

 

Dora, who will be 21 in March, is the daughter of Jennifer.

Her soup was the last one in the competition, and placed second.

It was the baked potato soup.

That would be a fully loaded spud, too, and the aroma was divine!

The soup would have benefited from having a dollop of sour cream as a garnish, maybe with a sprinkle of chives to dress it up.

Julie's Italian sausage pasta soup earned her third place, though it was the second soup to hit the table.

That's pretty high ranking for a first-timer!

This photo was snapped before the shaved Parmesan came around to go on top.

Even so, it was a good-looking soup and very tasty, as she used spicy sausage. 

It was one of the two that I deemed deserving of a "5" for taste!

I would have taken some of that home!

Then there's the Escarole Soup.

As the first soup of the evening, it set the bar... and set it low.

That's okay, as this was Bridget's first try and she will be better next time.

The pieces of the veggie and of the chicken were all too large and were stranded in the thin broth.

It has potential, though, so I hope this friend of Yvette will return next year to cook again for the party.

So, where's a photo of that winner tonight?

Here it is, and ain't it a beauty with that puff pastry top hat?

The aroma was very nice, too, as well as the presentation, and the taste?

Well, as I told all, I never had a Chicken Pot Pie as good as this soup bearing its name!

That's another I would have liked to take home for another meal.

Hopefully we'll be getting the recipes.

And who was that winning cheftestant?

It was Lisa!!!
There she is, with Dawn and The Koz, who'd come down from his man-cave to do his own taste tests!

He was also curious about our soup-tasting names for this occasion and mine was the first he demanded to know.

"Captain Cheesy Garlic Gobbler!", I proclaimed gladly, as writ large on my name tag.

Hahahaha!!!

What a bunch of Ninja Noodle, Spoon Sniffer, Spud-tastic Sipsters we all were!

Now, my silly self is home after 4+ hours with these ladies, laughing and sharing jokes and soup!

Thanks, Gina, for granting me the rest of the biscotti you made for us!

Thank you, Susan, for bouncing next door to be part of this grand affair!

And thank you, too, Margaret, for remembering my Easter Soup from a year when I was a cheftestant!

Good times, good times!!!

Well worth getting out in the low forties to be in all that warmth!  

 

"Wait! Are you back to taking Sotalol for your atrial fibrillation?" 

 

Nope, I'm just talkin' 'bout that temperatures outside! My heart doc seems to have my heart back in rhythm, so I've been pushing the boundaries to see where they are now. I felt like this would be safe tonight, as I wasn't walking far, and I am doing just fine! Time to catch up with those flower sisters now...