2009 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Awards

The 2009 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Awards have just been announced. The awards are like the “Oscars” of the culinary world and are the country’s most coveted honor for chefs. If you are not aware (where have you been?), the James Beard Foundation is a highly-respected, super-active entity dedicated to celebrating, preserving and nurturing America’s culinary heritage and diversity.

You can find the complete list of the 2009 nominees by clicking here

The “cooking from a professional point of view” category should be an extremely interesting one to follow, with Thomas Keller (The French Laundry), Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck), and Grant Achatz (Alinea) going mano-a-mano for a very coveted award. Part of the interest lies in the fact that Achatz once was Keller’s apprentice, which gives the story a little student vs. master suspense.
But mainly, I can’t help but be impressed by Achatz. In September 2008, I reported on a different blog that the Chicago chef really should be applauded for having the cojones to turned down a $500,000 to a million dollar publishing deal to write his book his own way. What he and his partner Nick Kokonas wanted to do, even though everybody told them they were crazy, was to construct the book from A to Z the exact way they wanted, put the book online and bring updates, experiments and other cooking videos, even after the publishing date. In other words, they wanted to build some sort of Alinea online community rather than a mere, physical cookbook. Something that is unheard of in the publishing industry.
Now, if this is not taking a cookbook to a higher level, I don’t know what is. You can check the Alinea community online and support that exceptional effort by buying Alinea’s cookbook here.