Alinea cookbook wins 2009 James Beard Award

 You can find the complete list of the 2009 James Beard Award winners by clicking here.

As I reported last month, the “cooking from a professional point of view” category was 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 lied in the fact that Achatz once was Keller’s apprentice, which gave 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.

Well, the Alinea cookbook won the James Beard Award and that is a really good news for the culinary community. You can check the Alinea community online and support that exceptional effort by buying the book below.