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Founded 05-05-05

Storie Street Grille Wins Inaugural Girl Scout Cookie Dessert Tasting

Story by Corinne Saunders

Six Boone and Blowing Rock restaurants whipped up desserts for the inaugural Girl Scout Cookie Dessert Tasting held at The Best Cellar Restaurant on Wednesday, March 19.

Chefs from Pssghetti’s, The Best Cellar Restaurant, Crippen’s, Storie Street Grille, The Manor House at Chetola and Melanie’s each made at least one delectable dessert for the tasting competition.

Storie Street Grille’s blueberry lemon bars were voted the best dessert, with second place going to Crippen’s peanut butter banana cream squares with strawberries and third place awarded to The Best Cellar Restaurant’s peanut butter and jelly pie.

The participating restaurants were allowed to choose which of the eight types of Girl Scout cookies they wanted to use in their dessert, and they could make as many desserts as they wished.

Dessert tasters voted their first, second and third tastiest picks.

Nancy Blair, membership specialist for the Girl Scout Council of the Catawba Valley Area, organized the evening that included a silent auction and a grand prize drawing.

Jeannine Indicott won the grand prize—a package deal consisting of a night for two at the Inn at Ragged Gardens, dinner for two at The Best Cellar Restaurant and two tickets good for any show at the Hayes Performing Arts Center.

Everyone attending the tasting received one free grand prize drawing ticket and had the option to purchase additional tickets.

The night was a fundraiser for Girl Scout troops in the Catawba Valley Area. The funds primarily go to troops in Ashe and Watauga counties to offset the cost of two summer camps—Girls Investigating Real Life Science (GIRLS) and Camp Cotillion, Blair said.

Watauga County has 23 Girl Scout troops for girls in kindergarten through high school, she added.

Blair presold 30 tickets to the dessert tasting, and told the restaurant chefs to plan for about 50 attendees, she said.

“Lynn Norwood has wanted to do this for a couple years,” Blair said. “Her daughter is in my daughter’s troop and she has the restaurant connections.”

The dessert tasting night was the second part of a two-part fundraiser. Several local restaurants, including Pssghetti’s, Storie Street Grille, Chetola, Black Bear Books and Twigs, sold desserts using Girl Scout cookies from February 20 through March 20. Black Bear Books has blended special coffees since January that use the cookies, such as peanut butter lattes, Blair said.

The cooperation of the restaurants helped make the event a well-attended, enjoyable evening.

“Best Cellar has been great to let us use the facility,” Blair said. “Chetola has really gone out of the way to do advertising for us,” she added.

At Chetola, dessert menus on the restaurant tables advertised special desserts made with Girl Scout cookies. Chetola sold 50 desserts over t the past month and donated a portion of the proceeds to the Girl Scouts.

Be sure to look for more Girl Scout Cookie Dessert Tasting evenings benefiting Catawba Valley Area Girl Scout troops in upcoming years; the council definitely plans to do it again, Blair said.