"food sections" news and stories

We'll be live-Twittering tonight's James Beard Media Awards and Monday's Restaurant Awards, so follow along @slashfood. Meanwhile, snack on these links to the nominated articles, recipes, reviews, food sections, sites, blogs and books.

Journalism Awards

For articles published in English in 2008.

Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants And/Or Chefs

Monica Eng, Phil Vettel
Chicago Tribune
"Big Night. Big Mystery: Why Did Michael Carlson Vanish the Day After Serving Dinner to the Greatest Chefs in the World?"

Katy McLaughlin
The Wall Street Journal
"Sushi Bullies"

Tom Sietsema
The Washington Post
"Sound Check"

More links to Journalism, Cookbook and Broadcast nominees after the jump.

An email I received from Jessica's Biscuit pointed out that the nominees for the International Association of Culinary Professions Awards (IACP) and the James Beard Foundation Awards were both announced yesterday. For those unfamiliar, both awards are akin to receiving an Oscar within the food community. Both recognize outstanding cookbooks, journalism and professionals in the food world, and while there is some overlap, the list of nominees for Beard Foundation Awards is far lengthier. Beard nominees for best food-related website include Leite's Culinaria, Epicurious and Dr. Vino's Wine Blog. There are also categories for webcasts, weekly newspaper sections, magazines, and a diverse array of awards chefs and cookbooks. The IACP is presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Knopf VP and editor Judith Jones (who helped launch Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking) and a Humanitarian Award to Frontera Grill's Rick Bayless. Go check out both sites and see if any of your favorites have made the lists of nominees.

While at one point the awards given out by the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ) to various food writers and food sections only really mattered to their local readers, this is definitely no longer the case. Since most newspapers are online, we can look at food sections from all over the world in a matter of minutes, and the AFJ awards can help point us towards the good ones that we might take a look at in addition to our local papers. The 2006 awards were just released and some of the winners are:

• Best Food Sections (small): Akron Beacon Journal, The Advocate (Baton Rouge), Reno Gazette-Journal
• Best Food Sections (medium): The Oregonian, Baltimore Sun, San Jose Mercury News
• Best Food Sections (large): LA Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle
• Food critics Jonathan Gold (LA Weekly), Tom Sietsema (Washington Post) and Michael Bauer (SF Chronicle) were all honored for their restaurant reviews.

For full details, and to check out the names of all the very worthy other winners, you'll have to take a look at the press release (pdf).

We've already started our Sarah G. vs Sarah G., Seattle vs Pittsburgh super food war. The Seattle Times can't miss out with its volley across the bow of the S.S. Seahawk.

• Make a meal out of your Super Bowl food with recipes for Seattle seafood chowder; hot smoked salmon dip; apple-glazed ham (Washington apples I hope!); sandwiches made with apple chutney to use up that yummy ham; and a Northwest Waldorf salad (which is pitiful, honestly, couldn't it have included hazelnuts instead of walnuts? what's Northwest about a Waldorf salad? it's from New York City for goodness' sake).
• Nancy Leson gives some recommendations for takeout (if you're too excited to cook), like Ezell's Famous Chicken, Sushiland, and Salumi Artisan Cured Meats.
• Skip the Budweiser and try some microbrews - and learn how to pronounce "hefeweizen" - it's HAY-fe-VITE-tzen, for the record.

According to Gastropoda, the latest thing in the food sections of major newspapers is utilizing stock photos to illustrate recipes. "It’s more insidious than outsourcing journalism -- why should the Wall Street Journal shoot a fresh creme brulee from a New Orleans chef when there are iconic images to be had for almost nothing? All cremes brulee are alike, no?"

It's economical, sure, those photo stylists and food photographers are pricey. And then there's the cooking. What food writer wants to cook? Especially when the good people at the USDA are working so hard baking apple pies for you. For free.

Gastropoda says that USA Weekend was the worst offender. I checked with the Oregonian "Food Day" that arrived on my front steps today and was pleased to see Oregonian photo credits under every picture. I'm wondering if this is isolated to a few national papers for whom food sections are not a focus or is more widespread. How 'bout your local paper?

Source