diningdestinations
Cookie
Monsters Airpark chefs are sweet on the Girl Scout Cookie Dessert Challenge.
Banana Cream Pie in a Jar with Tagalong Crust at Rusconi’s American Kitchen (Photos courtesy HMA Public Relations)
By Alison Bailin Batz
F
or six weeks each year, Girl Scouts in Arizona participate in the largest girl-led business: the Girl Scout Cookie Program. From January 22 through March 4, more than 13,000 local girls will be walking around neighborhoods and sitting at booths in front of local stores learning entrepreneurial skills while selling cookies. This season also marks the fifth anSavannah Smiles Vanilla and Lemon niversary of a Girl Scout program near Raspberry Tart at Ocean Prime and dear to local chefs’ hearts: The Girl Scout Cookie Dessert Challenge. For the fifth year in a row, chefs from some of the Valley’s most popular restaurants will use their culinary prowess to reimagine one of the beloved flavors of Girl Scout cookies into a custom dessert menu item. Each restaurant has agreed to feature its dessert on its menu from February 1 to February 28, with a portion of the proceeds from each dessert sold directly supporting Girl Scouts in our S'mores Fudge Pop at community. The Thumb “When the Girl Scouts brought (Photo by Joanie Simon) the idea of a dessert challenge to Lumberyard Brewery in Flagstaff – have us more than five years ago, we had been partners in the program for all five no idea it would grow into the level of years. “Every year, we’ve had to step competition that it has in such short up our game in the most creative – and order,” says Susan Kolman, the baker at delicious – ways possible.” The Thumb, who – along with Rusconi’s Newbie venues are also coming American Kitchen, Olive + Ivy and on strong this year. “For the past
56 | Scottsdale Airpark News February 2018
Thin Mint Chocolate Brownie Pie with Thin Mint Cookie Ice Cream at Proof Canteen
several months, our focus has been to engage with our hyper-local Airpark community in a very real, very proactive way,” says Kellie Pruitt, founder and owner of Grape Wine Bistro on Scottsdale and Pinnacle Peak roads. “With thousands of Scottsdale girls set to get out and sell cookies in the communities right in our own backyard – not to mention promote their new ‘G.I.R.L.s’ mission focused on fostering the Go-getters, Innovators, Risk-takers, Leaders of tomorrow – we jumped at the chance to take part in this challenge for our first time.”