Lynn Soup Bowl raises over $350 for animal shelter

LYNN – Confident cooks and animal enthusiasts came together Sunday at Four Winds Pub in Lynn for the fifth annual “Soup Bowl,” a local cook-off that raises money for homeless animals.Soup Bowl founder Doug Hidler raised money for numerous organizations for 25 years before “retiring,” only to take it up again in 2008 when he heard about the abused and homeless animals at Northeast Animal Shelter and decided to start the Soup Bowl, held the week before the Super Bowl every year, to help “make their lives a little easier.”?Every year I have a theme – we?ve done chili, beef stew and chowder. This year I said you could bring anything cooked in a crock pot,” Hidler said.This year, the “crock-off” raised $367 for the animal shelter, and had 14 entries, the most since its inception. There were so many options, many groups passed around bowls of each item to share and critique. About 25 people participated in the voting.Individuals who wanted to show off their crock-pot creations made $4 donations to the shelter, while those tasting the entries paid $5 to vote on their favorites. The winner received a silver bowl-shaped trophy with his or her name on it, and bragging rights for the entire year, Hidler said.For the second year in a row, Peabody resident Catherine Szmyd earned the right to brag, beating out 13 other slow-cooker entries, including pea soup, beef stew, stuffed cabbage and numerous chili varieties, to win for a second year in a row.?I consider myself a wonderful cook,” Szmyd said laughingly as she tasted another person?s chili entry. Szmyd, along with the other contestants, tasted her competitor?s entries, but gave up the right to vote.Last year, Szmyd said, she won with a venison beef stew that bowled the crowd over. This year, she beat out two other past winners with her chili recipe, including Tommy John, who also submitted chili he said stood out because he put beef tips in it.?That?s what I prefer, and I?m hoping nobody likes it and I can take it home and eat for a week,” John joked.Hidler said some people don?t participate in the cooking, eating or voting, but still make a donation to the shelter. But the ones that do compete, he said, take it very seriously.Most of the contestants just seemed to be enjoying spending the afternoon with friends, eating carefully crafted slow-cooker cuisine. Phil Clifford, who won the Soup Bowl several years ago with his clam chowder, submitted chowder again this year because, he said, “That?s the only thing I know how to make.”Taylor Provost can be reached at [email protected].