First few Chicago James Beard Award winners: Grieveson, Calumet Fisheries
May. 3, 2010
Avec's Koren Grieveson - Best Chef: Great Lakes
The first few winners from the Chicago area have been announced at the 2010 James Beard Awards in New York City. Best Chef: Great Lakes went to Koren Grieveson, the Executive Chef at Avec, in the West Loop. Grieveson had some serious co-nominees, including Arun Sampanthavivat of Arun's, Bruce Sherman of North Pond and Michael Carlson of Schwa in Wicker Park. Calumet Fisheries was also named one of "America's Classics," for its 60-year commitment to providing smoked fish on-site, along the 95th Street bridge in Calumet.
Full coverage: 2010 James Beard Awards
May. 3, 2010
Gotta hand it to the James Beard Awards. What started out two decades ago as a way to recognize the best restaurants, chefs and cookbooks, has turned into an all-glamour, star-studded (if you think Wolfgang Puck is a star) event. Moved from the dowdy Marriot Marquis in Times Square a few years ago, the event is now held at Lincoln Center, complete with the phalanx of cameras and reporters camped out front, hoping to have a few words with "Iron Chef" Michael Symon or Andrew Zimmern.
Last night, as I reported, only two Chicago winners brought home the Beard: Cliff Doerksen from The Chicago Reader and Kevin Pang from chicagotribune.com. Tonight, a handful of locals are poised (fingers crossed) to take home their own Beards: HotChocolate's Mindy Segal is up for Best Pastry Chef in the country, and Spiaggia is back again to attempt to claim the most coveted prize of the night - Best Restaurant in the Country.
I'll be blogging live from the event tonight, grabbing interviews with any and all Chicago-area winners.
#17 Let's wish each other good luck!
May. 3, 2010The last few missions have had an "outward" nature to them, like go out and do x, y or z, and then we'll regroup about it later. (x being the Cartwheel Mission, y being the Polaroid Mission, z being the Synchronized Texting Mission.)
So this week we're gonna spend the whole week huddling around home base, more specifically, connecting with each other in comment section land.
MISSION: I'd like you to think of something that you need good luck with/on, and ask for it. And in return, you'll wish the person right before you good luck. Simple as that. Sort of like we're trading personalized "good luck" yelps.
You'll see Justin Kaufmann and I have kicked things off... just take it from there...
And here's the soundtrack to this week's mission, a super fun song by Secret Agent 23 Skidoo titled "Luck."
amy
The weekend weather report (in photos)
May. 3, 2010
(photo by Lee Bey)
We're having a warm May so far. A year ago, it was still chilly in June.‚ There's an early thaw in the cold weather city and its denizens took to the streets over the weekend, grateful. The wind had a little crispness still, but we'll take it--especially when it comes with temps that topped 67 degrees.
Bringin' home the (Beard) bacon
May. 3, 2010
Kevin Pang savoring his first James Beard Award
It wasn't exactly a stellar opening round for Chicago's best at the 2010 James Beard Awards for media and cookbooks last night. Despite several nominees in the room, the only Chicagoans to bring home the gold were the Chicago Tribune's Kevin Pang (above), who won for Best Multimedia Food Feature, for "The Cheeseburger Show" on chicagotribune.com; The Chicago Reader's Cliff Doerksen also won for Best Newspaper Feature Writing, for his piece, "The Real American Pie."