Band of Thebes

James Beard Award Winners

   

Timed with his birthday, the James Beard Foundation announced their awards for books, journalism, and broadcast. Double winners are Historic Heston and writer Fuchsia Dunlop for international cookbook (Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking) and for personal essay (Dick Soup, which, yes, is). TV winners are Ina Garten, Anthony Bourdain, and Martha Stewart. Tonight, the JBF announces their restaurant awards.

Cookbook of the Year:  Historic Heston, Heston Blumenthal

Literature: Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us [and Kindle], Michael Moss

General Cookbook: Smoke: New Firewood Cooking, Tim Byres

Professional Cookbook: Historic Heston, Heston Blumenthal 

International Cookbook: Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, Fuchsia Dunlop

American Cookbook: The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes, Amy Thielen

Vegetarian Cookbook: Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom, with over 300 Deliciously Simple Recipes, Deborah Madison

Born May 5: James Beard, Del Martin

James Beard knew he was gay when he was seven in Portland and, acting on those impulses as soon as he got to college, was expelled from Reed in his freshman year for "homosexual activity."  He traveled with a theater troupe, spent several years in Europe, came home, and moved to New York still hoping to be an actor. He took a temporary job as a caterer and three years later published his first cookbook, Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapés, in 1940. After three more books he got his own cooking show on television and, in 1955, he established The James Beard Cooking School, which lasted 30 years until his death in 1985. His huge appetites extended to money and fame, leading him to many, many endorsement deals that contradicted everything he preached in the kitchen. Despite a famous temper, he could be a nurturing mentor and loyal friend, and with Gael Greene he founded Citymeals-on-Wheels. He is openly gay in his memoir Delights And Prejudices and his collection of letters Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles. Two biographies are Epicurean Delight: The Life and Times of James Beard by longtime friend Evan Jones, husband of legendary editor Judith Jones, and The Solace of Food by Robert Clark.

Del Martin died in August 2008 at 87, widowing a wife with whom she spent 55 years championing the rights of the denigrated and disenfranchised. In 1955, when homosexuality was illegal, she, her life partner Phyllis Lyon, and six other lesbians founded the Daughters of Bilitis in her native San Francisco. By 1960 DOB chapters were active in nine cities nationwide and their magazine, The Ladder, was thriving despite most readers' need for secrecy. Even in friendly waters, they had to fight the tides against lesbians, both among straight women in NOW and gay men in the queer equality movement. Martin addressed the latter situation in her landmark article, "Goodbye, My Alienated Brothers," which appeared in the Advocate in 1970. Two years later, she and Lyon were instrumental in forming the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, and they published their seminal book Lesbian/Woman. In 1979 they were honored by a group of medical professionals who wanted to start a clinic for lesbians who lacked health care, and they chose the name Lyon-Martin Health Services. In 1995 they were named separately as delegates to the White House Conference on Aging. Ever the trailblazers, Martin [above right, left left] and Lyon were the very first gay couple to be married in San Francisco in February 2004. If there is anything good about her death, it's that she did not have to see Prop 8 pass three months later. Click here to watch them describes the early hurdles they faced in forming and growing DOB during a time when they could not advertise their existence.

James Beard Award Finalists: Dick Soup and 'America, Your Food Is So Gay'

John Birdsall's America, Your Food Is So Gay, about his homo neighbors Pat and Lou whom he adored when he was ten in 1970, today earned a James Beard Award nomination. So did Dick Soup, by Fuchsia Dunlop who is also honored for her Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking.

Among the twelve categories of book awards:

 

Literature

A Fork In The Road [Kindle], (an anthology of food travel writing), James Oseland (ed.) 

Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard & the Reinvention of American Taste, Luke Barr 

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us [Kindle], Michael Moss

 

General 

One Good Dish, David Tanis

Smoke: New Firewood Cooking, Tim Byres

Try This at Home: Recipes from My Head to Your Plate, Richard Blais

 

Professional

Historic Heston, Heston Blumenthal ($125, fyi)

Manresa: An Edible Reflection, David Kinch

René Redzepi: A Work in Progress, Rene Redzepi

 

Reference and Scholarship

A History of Food in 100 Recipes, William Sitwell

Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century, Helen Zoe Veit

Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, Adrian Miller

 

See all the writing and restaurant nominees here.

Queer Bites in Provence, 1970

Despite its flaws -- an author not quite equal to his subjects and not fully convincing in his loose thesis, as well as problems of pacing, padding, and compulsive repetition -- Luke Barr's Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste [Kindle] stays readable thanks to its idyllic setting and stellar cast. The majority of those stars were queer: thrice-married bisexual MFK Fisher, old guard gay chef James Beard, upstart gay cook Richard Olney, and lesbian partners Sybille Bedford and Eda Lord. More gay men cruise the background including Beard's longtime partner pastry chef Gino Coffaci, NYT critic Craig Claiborne, and Fisher's high-flying friend David Pleydell-Bouverie. Of this rich, homo banquet Barr can serve forth only two crumbs: one observation that "catty" "snobs" Bedford and Olney hit it off because their orientation made them both outsiders, and one passing mention of Stonewall the previous year. The straight stars are supernovas, Julia & Paul Child and her editor Judith Jones, with glimpses of imperial Simone Beck and sweet Nora Barr, who is Fisher's sister and the author's grandmother. Luke Barr's lasting contribution here is having unearthed his great aunt MF's lost diary of this trip.

Readers may imagine from the book's subtitle a cause and effect -- because these gastro kingpins gathered, they actually discussed and decided something about the future of American food together -- but the reality is trickier. They were all on separate vacations, barely overlapping, and each had already decided to switch directions. In December 1970 Beard was years into his American Cookery, Julia months earlier had resolved to split from Simca Beck and go solo for her future books, and MFK Fisher's food career was largely behind her: Maybe the trip altered her long-held views of France, but after that she published only one new full-length work (a memoir of Marseille) and a few collections gathering older and more recent pieces.

Nevertheless it's a pleasure to see so many fascinating people in a beautiful spot before it was spoiled. If the book's greatest moments of brio and dynamism come from excerpts of its subjects' writing, you can go directly to their memoirs: Julia's My Life in France [Kindle], Beard's Delights And Prejudices, Richard Olney's Reflexions, Sybille Bedford's Quicksands, MFK Fisher's The Art of Eating, and Judith Jones' wonderful The Tenth Muse [Kindle]. Do not underestimate her: Jones (below, center) turns 90 this year and her long publishing career spans rescuing The Diary of Anne Frank from the rejection pile to decades of editing John Updike, Anne Tyler, Peter Taylor, and William Maxwell and scores of classic cookbooks. 

Gay Duo's Last Look at their Garden: To Eat, A Country Life

After 42 years in love, 33 of them at their ravishing 27-acre North Hill Garden in Vermont, and a lifetime total of two quarrels, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd were working on their fourth book together, when Wayne died of a heart attack at 68 in 2010. Alone, Joe didn't step foot in the garden, skipped every meal, collapsed, and ended up in the hospital for a week. Little by little, he returned to life and eventually finished their wonderful new book, To Eat: A Country Life [Kindle], on sale yesterday.

I read it on an airplane. Having given away my upgrade seat in business class to my partner, I took his aisle seat in coach, until a pushy mother kicked me to her *middle seat* elsewhere -- and I didn't mind. That's how enjoyable the book is. Each of the 35 short chapters begins with an enchanting line drawing by Bobbi Angell depicting the food under discussion: apples, chard, potatoes, winter herbs, wild salads, Egyptian onions, etc. and continues with just the right blend of historical, personal, and cultivating details. Four chapters describe their farm animals, including a herd bull who was the son of the queen's herd bull at Balmoral and a pig named Rolo who died of bleeding ulcers. They asked the vet why:

"Loneliness, he thought, simply too many hours spent waiting for our two brief visits each day. Pigs are social animals and they need company; humans will do, if not other pigs. But they must not be left in solitude. We have since then always kept two pigs even though we could never consume in a year the quantities of pork two pigs render. It pleases us that they have happy communal lives and we have fine pork to give to our friends." 

In the eyes of the devoted authors, the fruit and vegetables are portrayed with just as much personality as the livestock. Spinach can be "cranky," leeks are part of a "gifted and clever family" of kitchen alliums. Very rarely, the writing slips into a sun-dappled sentimentality, as when they recall in order the hallmark weather of the year's four seasons, and certainly the book is an unabashed ode to "the deepest reward of a country life... the rhythms, values, habits, and flavors of another time." Some readers may come to want a few more failures in the narrative, because those ulcers, and blight, and raccoons who stole the corn harvest are sometimes more interesting than yet another happy memory of a favorite food plant. But no one could complain about a book whose discussion of beets opens into a wider conversation about their tradition of eating Christmas dinners away, in Paris, or Amsterdam, or California.

About half the chapters end with a recipe or two, some from Beatrice Tosti di Valminuta of Il Bagatto in the East Village. Many more recipes can be found in Eck and Winterrowd's excellent Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill.

For more about them and their flowers, read their longer books Our Life in Gardens or A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden.

James Beard Award Winners

    

Sunday was James Beard's 110th birthday; last night his foundation honored the year's best food writing, journalism, cookbooks, and restaurants.

Cookbook of the Year: Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla

General Cooking: Canal House Cooks Every Day

Literature: Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson

Single Subject: Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel Slater

American: Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking

International: Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Reference: The Art of Fermentation: An Exploration of Essential Concepts from Around the World

Professional: Toque!

Baking & Dessert: Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza

Bev: Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours

Veg: Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes

Health: Cooking Light The New Way to Cook Light: Fresh Food & Bold Flavors for Today's Home Cook

Photography: What Katie Ate: Recipes and Other Bits and Pieces

Click here for the restaurant and journalism winners.

Michael Pollan's Cooked

The other instant bestseller of interest out yesterday is Michael Pollan's Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation [Kindle]. It's his seventh book and, yes, we've been here before with other authors, but as a nature writer Pollan is going to make his usual interesting connections between your kitchen and the wider world.

At least all his success has not co-opted his straight talk. From a chat with New York:

"So you’ve been disappointed in the Obamas?
"I’m disappointed. I think she’s done some very positive things. She’s elevated the conversation. The planting of the garden at the White House was a powerful step... I think that the rest of the administration has been very disappointing—in the East Wing they get it, not in the West Wing so much. They’ve backed off whenever challenged. Even voluntary marketing guidelines have been shot down. Voluntary guidelines! There has been more support for farm to school, there have been some improvements in lunch programs. But it’s not what we needed or what we hoped for."

For more disappointment, read this story posted today about the Obama administration rolling back USDA's oversight of the nation's biggest chicken and turkey slaughterhouses.

James Beard Foundation Returns Boy Scouts Award Over Antigay Bias

People often dismiss the Huffington Post's Gay Voices page but thanks entirely to this essay posted there yesterday by Michelangelo Signorile, the president of the James Beard Foundation has returned an award she had accepted earlier in the week from the Boy Scouts. Beard was kicked out of Reed College in 1922 for being gay and Signorile rightly asked if he was rolling over in his grave at the thought of an award from the homophobic Scouts. Beard Foundation president Susan Ungaro informed the BSA she is rescinding her acceptance of their Distinguished Citizen Award specifically because she "absolutely does not" support their antigay policy. Don't for a minute think the Boy Scouts have mellowed. Earlier this month the organization expelled an Ohio mom, Jennifer Tyrrell, from Cub Scouts after discovering she is a lesbian.

[Photo by Dan Wynn]

Florent: Queen of the Meat Market

If I weren't in Italy, yesterday I would have been at Cinema Village for opening night of the documentary about marvelous Florent: Queen of the Meat Market.

NYT: "It is a touching, elegiac tale of the rise (and some would say fall) of a colorful New York neighborhood under the relentless march of gentrification."

New York: "The film is packed with amusing talking heads (Michael Musto, Murray Hill, Penny Arcade, Frank DeCaro, Diane von Furstenberg, Isaac Mizrahi, Julianne Moore, and many more) who showed up to pay tribute to Florent Morellet, the mischievous restaurateur who helped pioneer the now-oversaturated cool of the meatpacking district through the grubby glamour of his glorified luncheonette — a place that made all sorts of activism appetizing...There’s no denying that since Florent closed in 2008, the west side of Manhattan has been a far less fabulous place."

IFC: "Director David Sigal lets his affection for Florent shine through, and he's assembled a truly impressive list of celebrity testimonials."

The New York Press interviews Sigal.

Winners of the National Magazine Awards & James Beard Awards

Of note if you still read magazines or eat.

Yesterday The New Yorker lost seven categories at the National Magazine Awards and won one (for Public Interest, for Atul Gawande's "Letting Go"). Winning two awards each were New York, The NYT Magazine, Los Angeles, and National Geographic which was named magazine of the year. Other single winners were Harper's, Vanity Fair, W, Women's Health, Men's Health, Men's Journal, ESPN (for the photography feature "Bodies We Want," above and below), Garden & Gun, and Poetry.

Virginia Quarterly Review won, again, for fiction. The VQR's managing editor Kevin Morrissey killed himself last July, after alleged bullying and harassment from the editor Ted Genoways. The university suspended publication, investigated, couldn't find anything "specific," and invited Genoways to stay on as editor. He accepted, bitterly. The journal is back in publication.

The James Beard Awards have grown so large they require two nights of prize-giving. Last night they honored restaurants nationwide -- with six big wins for New York and chef of the year to Jose Andres at DC's Minibar -- and last Friday they celebrated the finest cookbooks, naming the best of the year Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy, from the University of Texas Press, by British legend Diana Kennedy who has lived in Mexico since 1957. Amanda Hesser won the general cooking award for The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. Jessie Price won the healthy focus award for The Simple Art of EatingWell. Grace Young won the international category with Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge. Mark Bitterman won the reference category for his manifesto with recipes, Salted. James Peterson won the single subject award for Meat: A Kitchen Education. The literature award was presented to Paul Greenberg for his book, Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. And Harold McGee won the hall of fame award for On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen from 2004.

Sandy Leonard Snaps

If Justin Halpern's twitter feed can become a #1 bestselling hardcover and a William Shatner sitcom, the brand new treasure Sandy Leonard Snaps deserves to be a Taschen art book and a feature film. A travel photoblog, the site each day offers one picture and a paragraph of impeccable prose describing the circumstances. You might worry that living vicariously through Sandy's four decades of adventures might ratchet envy and jealousy to fatal levels. Not so. Just admiration and gratitude. But hurry: In four days you've already missed lavender marshmallows in Paris, local slang in Barcelona, "potty-mouthed" Diana Rigg in London, and this miffed dog in Tucson who believed the cat got to dine at a restaurant with the humans.

Another friend's blog that is ripe for a book contract and a darker Hollywood comedy of ADD, motherhood, and autism is Tracy Stroh's Everloving Mess.

Bake! Essential Techniques from Nick Malgieri

Scientists have yet to discover that the gay gene is entwined with the procrastination gene [I was supposed to post this a month ago / how long did you put off coming out], but if you're one of the millions who hasn't quite gotten around to thinking about your Thanksgiving dessert, Nick Malgieri is here to help. The Director of Pastry & Baking at the Institute of Culinary Education, he's the author of ten cookbooks, including the great new Bake!: Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking. Whereas other books leave you stranded with obscure, text-only instructions, Nick's book is packed with helpful photos of him demonstrating the tricky parts. Better still, his relaxed approach is a joy. He says, "Baking needn't be any more difficult than making a phone call."

A tireless teacher and traveler, Nick constantly does delightful cooking demos. Last week was Washington and Calfornia, this week and next it's New York and Connecitcut. Get Bake! and treat yourself to my favorite medicine manual, Cookies Unlimited.

Obama's DOMA, DADT, Drilling, Climate, FDA, Spying, Wall Street

Late yesterday the Obama Administration filed a notice of appeal in the case where the Defense of Marriage Act was ruled unconstitutional. Early in 2011 they will defend DOMA, which candidate Obama called "abhorrent" and vowed to repeal. The White House still claims to want to overturn DOMA.

Yesterday the administration also ended its moratorium on offshore drilling. Anyone who felt during the gulf spill crisis that BP was calling the shots, should read the NYT about the president's "haste" when the three studies about the spill are unfinished. The Secretary of Interior(!) said, "We are open for business."

Yesterday Federal Judge Virginia Phillips issued an injunction to halt Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Last month when she declared DADT unconstitutional, the White House said she lacked authority over the military. Now 21 senators have called on Obama not to appeal Judge Phillips' decision.

Speaking of lacking authority over the military: Afghanistan.

Read The New Yorker piece on Obama and the failed climate change bill: "The White House’s “grand bargain” of oil drilling in exchange for a cap on carbon had backfired spectacularly... Obama said that he knew “the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months.” He never found them, and he didn’t appear to be looking very hard...[a lobbyist:] '...Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change.”

Not to mention the loophole-riddled, gift to big pharma, no public option but yes pre-existing conditions health care compromise written by industry lobbyists.

Speaking of industry lobbyists: Genetically modified meat is coming your way and the FDA doesn't want it labeled as such because that would "confuse consumers." The Washington Post reports the FDA may even ban non-modified food from saying its GMO-free.

Obama is calling for drastically expanded powers to spy on citizens who are not suspected of wrongdoing (Salon). Additionally, the administration wants to track every single international money transfer, in any amount, sent to or from the US.

The documentary Inside Job, which my partner and I loved, was made by an early Obama supporter, Charles Ferguson. Asked to assess the Financial Reform Bill, an industry player said he only needs one word, "Ha!" Of the entire $2 trillion catastrophe, not one person has been charged with a crime. Virtually every principal villain has been rehired or brought into the Administration.

McDonald's Gay Teen Commercial Airs in France

Never mind the stilted dialog, the noteworthy part is McDonald's using a gay teen storyline to sell their brand in France. Sent to me by a great internationalist, Sandy Leonard.

2009 James Beard Award Nominees

Not to serve up stale cliches, but there must be a lot of lgbt foodies in the gargantuan list of nominees for this year's James Beard Awards. (And not to truck in rumors but I heard years ago the judges didn't want too many gay winners. Beard himself was gay and out in his memoir. He died in 1985.)

The five big groupings are broadcast media, journalism, books, restaurant design, and best restaurant and chef -- the last category alone boasts nineteen prizes. Although the judges strive for diversity by giving regional awards for best chef, their "Northwest" consists of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska (a combined land mass of more than half the continental US) yet the nominees are four from Seattle and one from Portland. Such dainty quibbles must be a joy compared to 2005, when the Beard foundation president, Mr. Pickell, was imprisoned for grand larceny and two months later all eleven board members resigned.

GENERAL COOKING BOOKS

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

Martha Stewart's Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook by Martha Stewart with Sarah Carey

The Bon Appetit Cookbook: Fast Easy Fresh by Barbara Fairchild

WRITING AND LITERATURE

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop

Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef by Betty Fussell

OUTSTANDING CHEF AWARD

José Andrés
Minibar
Washington, D.C.

Dan Barber
Blue Hill
NYC

Tom Colicchio
Craft
NYC

Suzanne Goin
Lucques
Los Angeles

Paul Kahan
Blackbird
Chicago

OUTSTANDING RESTAURANT AWARD

Babbo
NYC
Chef/Owner: Mario Batali
Owner: Joe Bastianich

Boulevard
San Francisco
Chef/Owner: Nancy Oakes
Owner: Pat Kuleto

Fore Street
Portland, ME
Chef/Owner: Sam Hayward
Owner: Victor Leon and Dana Street

Highlands Bar & Grill
Birmingham, AL
Chef/Owner: Frank Stitt

Jean Georges
NYC
Chef/Owner: Jean-Georges Vongerichten
Owner: Phil Suarez