Dill pickle soup takes home gold at Seniors Week Soup Cook Off

By Lethbridge Herald on June 6, 2025.

Joe Manio
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In the end, there could only be one winner from nine soups, prepared by cooks from each of the Green Acres Foundation lodges and entered the first 2025 Soup Cook Off; part of a Seniors Week barbecue hosted at the Blue Sky Lodge on the North Side; and it was a soup from the host lodge that took first place.

“It was a fire-roasted red pepper and roasted tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons and creme fresh,” says Blue Sky Lodge cook Kelcy Campbell, who prepared the winning soup. “I would say it took me about an hour to put everything together; get everything roasted, blended and then put it together.”

Campbell says she wasn’t expecting to win, but it felt pretty cool. She said she really likes stuff like this (contests) because of opportunity to get her creative juices flowing. Campbell says that when the contest was announced, she jumped right in. In addition to bragging rights for winning, Campbell’s soup will be featured on the Green Acres Fall menu. Campbell was also one of the primary grillers preparing the food for the 150-200 attendees.

“Every year we try to do something different,” says Green Acres Foundation CEO Dawna Coslovi. “We’ve done wheelchair races, which I think you even participated in one year. So this year we decided let’s do something kind of fun. We are always told by our residents how much they love the soup, so this year we decided let’s have the chefs do a signature soup. Then we thought then whatever one won is going to be on our fall menu. So it’s this kind of fun. It gets the staff involved, gets the residents involved and that.”

The second-place soup was a dill pickle soup from the Sunny South Lodge, and third-place was a “bird soup” from the Alberta Rose Lodge. Coslovi says that when the next get together with all the residents happens, they’re probably going to rub it in to the other lodges that their lodge was the winner, but says there were no losers. Everyone wanted to support their lodge and just come out and have a good time.

Lethbridge Mayor Blaine Hyggen and Deputy Fire Chief Wes Borland served as guest judges among the other nine Green Acres resident judges. Of the soups they sampled, both said they really liked the dill pickle soup.

“All of the soups were amazing,” said Hyggen. “It was tough to figure which one was better over another because they were all were distinctive in their own ways and it was it was really good.”

The Green Acres Foundation is a non-profit housing management organization, whose mission is to provide affordable housing and quality services that are responsive to the needs of senior citizens in Southern Alberta. They offer a variety of housing options, including supportive living and designated supportive living, as well as a range of services like meals, housekeeping, and life-enriching activities.