Buenos Aires – The new James Beard 2006 Award nominations are out, plus New York Magazine’s Best of NY Food 2006, and I was pleased to see that between them, several of my friends have gotten nominated or named by one or the other. I’m thrilled that so many of them are being recognized for their outstanding work.
James Beard nominations:
New York Magazine Awards:
Congratulations!
Alice’s site the best one on food? I know Alice and like her a lot. She’s very talented. But I have to disagree that her Web site is worth an award for food coverage. It’s focused on wine with food as kind of a background.
The Beard awards are , in general, kind of strange. Is any organization that charges $75 per nominee really legitimate?
And as for Daniel Johnnes, who I don’t really know other than a couple of brief experiences with him, don’t get me started. I think it was Churchill who commented about a certain Lord in Parliament but which I think could be applied toward Daniel: “He is a modest little man with much to be modest about.”
You actually introduced me to Alice, years ago, and we’ve maintained infrequent, but friendly contact over the years, with the occasional dinner and such. I was a little surprised initially, but thinking about it, with the exception of service related stuff like “Best W&S Pro”, the Beard Awards don’t distinguish between food and beverage in their categories. Her blog certainly is a fun read. At the same time, I kind of understand your point – the three nominees are so radically different, how does one compare them? Epicurious is a vast, encyclopedic type site with cooking lessons, dictionaries, recipes, interviews, and a host of other things, and, as of a few weeks ago, even a blog. David Leite’s site is a multi-author site – mostly, but not only his postings, and is primarily oriented around recipes that he is experimenting with for various articles, along with reprints of his articles after publication. Alice’s site is more of a personal journey through the wine world, bordering on diary-like, but engaging and well written, and also written at a level that non-wine geeks can easily follow and enjoy, which is something that takes some talent.
As to Daniel, well, he’s a friend, and I enjoy his company, though I don’t see him all that often. Truthfully, he’s accomplished a lot in the wine world, especially on the New York restaurant scene, and if he isn’t all that humble about it, so what? Frank Lloyd Wright once said that “It is better to be honestly arrogant than hypocritically humble.”
As to the nominations, well, who knows? While I’m not personally fond of what the Beard organization has become – especially with all the scandals that have popped up over the last few years – it’s still public recognition, and most of the public are blissfully unaware of the problems behind the scenes. There has always been a level of, shall we say, contribution, in order to be nominated – I was contacted a few years ago when I as at AZ and informed that I’d been “pre-“nominated for best wine and spirits professional. I was then called by one of the board members and informed, off the record, that the “pre-” would only be turned into a real nomination if I became a member… at a cost of $275 for the year, plus the nomination fee. I decided against it. And, by the way, I don’t object to that as a requirement – why should the Beard Society give awards to non-members?
I love that Wright quotation. So true. And to think all these years I’ve been so humble!
The books and articles that could be written about Beard and other organizations and people in the world we choose to live in would number many, indeed.
[…] I know I’m a few days behind, but wanted to scribble a followup to my post on the James Beard Award nominations last month (which engendered a bit of commentary discussion). The winners have been announced. Amongst those I’d like to think of as friends in the industry, congrats go out to Daniel Johnnes for Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional; William Scherer for Outstanding Wine Service; Alfred Portale for Outstanding Chef; and Mario Batali for his new cookbook Molto Italiano! […]