2017 James Beard Awards

[ol_ironstomach]

Yes, I snoozed through the mid-February announcement of restaurant and chef semi-finalists, but behold: the media and design nominees, as well as the restaurant and chef finalists!

[TrelayneNYC]

Will the James Beard Awards prove that in 2017 that they support non-white/female chefs or will women and minorities be tokens (as in the 2016 awards) once again where only 1 woman out of 11 total chefs for Best Chef: Regional was female? And of those 11, only one was a person of color. They couldn't even reach 10 percent, the poor dears.

#oldboysclub #sameoldsameold #ChefsSoWhite #ChefsSoMale #zzzz

[Deac]

Congrats to Mark Furstenberg, winner of the Outstanding Baker award!

[DonRocks]

33 minutes ago, Deac said:

Congrats to Mark Furstenberg, winner of the Outstanding Baker award!

 Congratulations, Mark!

(Actual post is here - damn, he deserves this.)

 

[Poivrot Farci]

1 hour ago, TrelayneNYC said:

Will the James Beard Awards prove that in 2017 that they support non-white/female chefs or will women and minorities be tokens (as in the 2016 awards) once again where only 1 woman out of 11 total chefs for Best Chef: Regional was female? And of those 11, only one was a person of color. They couldn't even reach 10 percent, the poor dears.

#oldboysclub #sameoldsameold #ChefsSoWhite #ChefsSoMale #zzzz

Sure it is a pompously subjective affair that differs from the objective scoring of Track & Field and competitive eating and there is no harm in tokens on the podium, "but this year, 27% of the semifinalists were female, compared with 19% in 2009".  That exceeds the demographics compiled by the Census Bureau and BLS.  

#statisticallymorechefsaremenandwhite

Congratulations to Mr. Furstenberg, and his tireless head baker Ben Arnold who only gets crumbs of recognition and praise.

 

[DonRocks]

4 minutes ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Congratulations to Mr. Furstenberg, and his tireless head baker Ben Arnold who only gets crumbs of recognition and praise.

Julien, would you mind saying some more about Ben Arnold? I don't think many people know of him, even here.

[TrelayneNYC]

3 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Sure it is a pompously subjective affair that differs from the objective scoring of Track & Field and competitive eating and there is no harm in tokens on the podium, "but this year, 27% of the semifinalists were female, compared with 19% in 2009".  That exceeds the demographics compiled by the Census Bureau and BLS.  

#statisticallymorechefsaremenandwhite

Congratulations to Mr. Furstenberg, and his tireless head baker Ben Arnold who only gets crumbs of recognition and praise.

The JBF Awards, the Michelin star business and the 50 Greatest Restaurants or whatever it is are basically a bunch of (mostly) rich white people congratulating a bunch of white men with the occasional token woman or person of color so they can feel good about being diverse without actually showing any diversity. Lists tend to reflect the values of the list-makers after all.

In other words, business as usual.

In case you need reminding:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/26/us/race-of-american-power.html 

Why should the restaurant industry be any different? I expect it to mirror America. #sarcasm

Yes, congratulations to all, but let's be realistic about exactly what it is that is being won. 

I'm jaded, bitter and cynical -- don't mind me.

Also this year's awards are automatically better than last year's since at least THREE women were winners of Best Chef: Regional.  Well, better than one I suppose. #damningwithfaintpraise

3 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

and there is no harm in tokens on the podium

There is harm if you care about diversity in the restaurant and hospitality industry, and by "diversity", I don't mean tokens but actual meaningful change. As a person of color, "diversity" to me means 50% or more of the industry consists of women, people of color and LGBT. Not this ridiculous word that doesn't mean anything because execution doesn't tee up with expectations.

If the folks at JBF want more women in the industry, they could start by nominating more women, having more women finish as semi-finalists and finalists, and have more women win. They have a long way to go and it seems I'm not the only one who feels that way.

[Poivrot Farci]

Conflating the entire restaurant industry with head chefs and a contorted awards process compensated with extra dough prospects makes a pretzel of sense at best. These are luxury services in the entertainment industry, not elected legislators directly affecting our livelihoods or providing essential services, though both receive votes that are based on anything but objective scoring.

Ostensibly, minorities are less represented than others because there are less of them. It may not be exclusively wholesale discrimination and more symptomatic of a litany of other social, economic and legislative factors. The $3billion NASCAR and the $4billion NHL (other stakeholders in the entertainment industry) were conspicuously absent from the NYTimes power exposé, and their profitable whiteness is probably because accessibility to go carts and ice rinks is more limited and costly than your average ball sports, instead of a collusion against anyone darker than the darkest Italian.

As it pertains to restaurants that fall within the grade worthy of JB/Michelin/GaultMillau/TopWhatever consideration, there is no reasonable expectation that the chefs who invariably work 60+hrs/week, nights, weekends and holidays represent the general population/labor force and statistics from the BLS concur.  Americans work longer hours for less pay and vacation than their international counterparts but 2/3rds still have weekends off and work somewhere in the 9-5 realm, perhaps less with telecommuting, which presents challenges in trying to oversee and manage a kitchen from home.

11 hours ago, TrelayneNYC said:

There is harm if you care about diversity in the restaurant and hospitality industry, and by "diversity", I don't mean tokens but actual meaningful change. As a person of color, "diversity" to me means 50% or more of the industry consists of women, people of color and LGBT. Not this ridiculous word that doesn't mean anything because execution doesn't tee up with expectations.

Absolutely not. Women make up 50.8% of the general American population (58.5% of the labor force and), but not of the industry (closer to 15%) and people of color/LBGT even less.  If LBGT people of color make up 15% of the chef population, then one can expect 10%-30% winners, but not more. That's just a matter of numbers and calculations and it would be a stretch to implicate 10^th Century Arabs in the numerical conspiracy to deprive minorities from awards shows a millennium later.

The awards (which, along with the Oscars have very little tangible merit other than driving up sales and egos)  are an inward looking masturbatory gala (every industry has them) that "should" represent the makeup of the industry (Asian chefs are the largest minority) but with so many categories the odds dictate that the largest population has a better shot of winning. It's more chance than malicious and a medal to hang on the mantel, not a scholarship.  In the first 20 of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, 3 are Asian, 1 is Indian and 5 come from central/southern America.

11 hours ago, TrelayneNYC said:

If the folks at JBF want more women in the industry, they could start by nominating more women, having more women finish as semi-finalists and finalists, and have more women win. They have a long way to go and it seems I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Working in a professional kitchen that strives to offer a premium product as a career is far from drinking snifters of scotch in club chairs at, chewing cigars and chuckling with the investors/owners/beneficiaries of said restaurants  The odds of breaking through to fame and acclaim in a fine dining restaurant (about 60,000 in the US) are worse than that actor who can't act like a server going to Hollywood or getting attacked by a blue lobster on the Cape.

The restaurant portion of the food service industry is awful. It is underpaid, under-insured and essentially an unskilled labor force that works shitty hours which are not conducive to a healthy, social or prosperous lifestyle. Dangling hopelessly rare prizes on the end of a sparkly stick is certainly not an effective way to court more passionate female chefs to a business that is one of the mascots for economic inequality & servitude to the privileged and no less flakey than encouraging little girls to grow up to be princesses. Anyone choosing to cook as a career for fame & fortune should invest in PR and a pair of ice skates or a tiara as a fail-safe.

It is an honor for these chefs to be nominated and validation for their work by peers who have established themselves as masters of the trade, but it is by no means meant to be a Benetton ad and I'll bet a fancy ham sandwich that most chefs were driven to cook out of necessity and to satisfy a creative craving for which there is an paying audience, rather than dreams of an elusive awards show indulged by star-fuckers.

[TrelayneNYC]

6 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Conflating the entire restaurant industry with head chefs and a contorted awards process compensated with extra dough prospects makes a pretzel of sense at best. These are luxury services in the entertainment industry, not elected legislators directly affecting our livelihoods or providing essential services, though both receive votes that are based on anything but objective scoring.

Ostensibly, minorities are less represented than others because there are less of them. It may not be exclusively wholesale discrimination and more symptomatic of a litany of other social, economic and legislative factors. The $3billion NASCAR and the $4billion NHL (other stakeholders in the entertainment industry) were conspicuously absent from the NYTimes power exposé, and their profitable whiteness is probably because accessibility to go carts and ice rinks is more limited and costly than your average ball sports, instead of a collusion against anyone darker than the darkest Italian.

As it pertains to restaurants that fall within the grade worthy of JB/Michelin/GaultMillau/TopWhatever consideration, there is no reasonable expectation that the chefs who invariably work 60+hrs/week, nights, weekends and holidays represent the general population/labor force and statistics from the BLS concur.  Americans work longer hours for less pay and vacation than their international counterparts but 2/3rds still have weekends off and work somewhere in the 9-5 realm, perhaps less with telecommuting, which presents challenges in trying to oversee and manage a kitchen from home.

Absolutely not. Women make up 50.8% of the general American population (58.5% of the labor force and), but not of the industry (closer to 15%) and people of color/LBGT even less.  If LBGT people of color make up 15% of the chef population, then one can expect 10%-30% winners, but not more. That's just a matter of numbers and calculations and it would be a stretch to implicate 10^th Century Arabs in the numerical conspiracy to deprive minorities from awards shows a millennium later.

The awards (which, along with the Oscars have very little tangible merit other than driving up sales and egos)  are an inward looking masturbatory gala (every industry has them) that "should" represent the makeup of the industry (Asian chefs are the largest minority) but with so many categories the odds dictate that the largest population has a better shot of winning. It's more chance than malicious and a medal to hang on the mantel, not a scholarship.  In the first 20 of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, 3 are Asian, 1 is Indian and 5 come from central/southern America.

Working in a professional kitchen that strives to offer a premium product as a career is far from drinking snifters of scotch in club chairs at, chewing cigars and chuckling with the investors/owners/beneficiaries of said restaurants  The odds of breaking through to fame and acclaim in a fine dining restaurant (about 60,000 in the US) are worse than that actor who can't act like a server going to Hollywood or getting attacked by a blue lobster on the Cape.

The restaurant portion of the food service industry is awful. It is underpaid, under-insured and essentially an unskilled labor force that works shitty hours which are not conducive to a healthy, social or prosperous lifestyle. Dangling hopelessly rare prizes on the end of a sparkly stick is certainly not an effective way to court more passionate female chefs to a business that is one of the mascots for economic inequality & servitude to the privileged and no less flakey than encouraging little girls to grow up to be princesses. Anyone choosing to cook as a career for fame & fortune should invest in PR and a pair of ice skates or a tiara as a fail-safe.

It is an honor for these chefs to be nominated and validation for their work by peers who have established themselves as masters of the trade, but it is by no means meant to be a Benetton ad and I'll bet a fancy ham sandwich that most chefs were driven to cook out of necessity and to satisfy a creative craving for which there is an paying audience, rather than dreams of an elusive awards show indulged by star-fuckers.

The restaurant and hospitality industry already suffers from a diversity problem in case you haven't noticed, and just because they're head chefs or sous chefs or chefs down the ladder doesn't mean their problems and challenges should be trivialized as you seem to be doing here.  Awards shows that don't represent women very well are part of the problem because they send a message that the white male patriarchy is very much in place, that the JBF folks favor men over women. It's the height of irony that a foundation that was named for an LGBT person routinely reinforces an anti-diversity message where women and people of color lose to white men. This year's awards results are slightly better which is to say that no significant improvement occurred at all. You missed the point of the New York Times infographic completely -- it is true that the awards and the Oscars are verbal masturbation; that was never in doubt. White Americans are the people who decide what books should be written, what laws are passed, what movies get produced, who own the majority of companies and business organizations and sports teams, who lead most cities, and who comprise the majority of the most important of our elected leaders. It should be no surprise whatsoever that the restaurant industry mirrors this dynamic. Minority voices are not a significant part of this picture, if ever they were. 

For minority chefs, how many well-known black and Latino chefs have won at the JBF awards or placed highly amongst Michelin apart from Marcus Samuelsson? I can't think of another chef, can you?

If you want real change, then it starts with the customer base...namely, us. The same is true for the rest of the foregoing problems. If we want more minority representation in every aspect of life in this country, we have the power to effect change. Anything else is just a waste of time, and I don't have TIME to waste time.  Defending the system is a waste of time.  It doesn't sound like you care very much about these real issues which do exist, affect real people and are a challenge that doesn't get sufficient air time.

This paragraph: 

"Women make up 50.8% of the general American population (58.5% of the labor force and), but not of the industry (closer to 15%) and people of color/LBGT even less.  If LBGT people of color make up 15% of the chef population, then one can expect 10%-30% winners, but not more. That's just a matter of numbers and calculations and it would be a stretch to implicate 10^th Century Arabs in the numerical conspiracy to deprive minorities from awards shows a millennium later. "

sounds like a bunch of excuses and was a waste of my time to read. We probably don't have very many LGBT chefs who are award-winners. The point is that more is better than none. I can't believe I had to fucking type that.

I wouldn't put too much stock in statistics which can be manipulated to produce any outcome you want. As far as I'm concerned, those are about as useful as pages from the Bible which are good for nothing but toilet paper. 50% or more of the voters in this country are registered Democrats and women, and yet we ended up with an orange hamster who plays with his wheel. 

Why am I bothering to speak to privileged white folks? Good question.

[TrelayneNYC]

Moderators -- please delete as you see fit.

[DonRocks]

[There's no way I'm going to delete this conversation - yes, the last post broke all boundaries of etiquette, but the conversation as a whole is passionate and interesting.]

I would comment on this, but it would be too tiring - what we have is two intelligent people, with different priorities, entrenched in their positions, and it would be a fool's errand on my part to try and enter the fray.

When I began this website, twelve years ago, I could have probably named five female Chefs de Cuisine in DC (actually, I kind of did (I would never do such a thing now, but it was funny twelve years ago, in context)). Hell, in 2005, I was pushing *so hard* to write a female sommelier piece for Washingtonian, and it kept getting rejected (I even had a title: "Hear me Pour.") Change is happening - perhaps not fast enough for some, but compared to twelve years ago, it's night-and-day.

[TrelayneNYC]

I don't know how you guys split quotes into manageable pieces. I looked for the on/off html switch but couldn't find it.

This sentence:

"In the first 20 of the World's 50 Best Restaurants, 3 are Asian, 1 is Indian and 5 come from central/southern America."

is meaningless to me. So 9 out of 20 restaurants -- still less than 50% mind you -- are non-European/nonwhite establishments that may be owned by people of color. So what? What about the rest of the 50 restaurants? 9 out of 50 is less than 20%. Kind of pathetic, and both fail my diversity test.

Yes, it is true that being nominated is an honor, and yes it is true, that winning an award is an honor and validation by peers. But if women and people of color routinely lose to white men, then one can't help but think that another message is being sent however unconscious it seems. One's life experience dictates one's opinion and world view.

[Simul Parikh]

1 hour ago, TrelayneNYC said:

The restaurant and hospitality industry already suffers from a diversity problem in case you haven't noticed, and just because they're head chefs or sous chefs or chefs down the ladder doesn't mean their problems and challenges should be trivialized as you seem to be doing here.  Awards shows that don't represent women very well are part of the problem because they send a message that the white male patriarchy is very much in place, that the JBF folks favor men over women. It's the height of irony that a foundation that was named for an LGBT person routinely reinforces an anti-diversity message where women and people of color lose to white men. This year's awards results are slightly better which is to say that no significant improvement occurred at all. You missed the point of the New York Times infographic completely -- it is true that the awards and the Oscars are verbal masturbation; that was never in doubt. White Americans are the people who decide what books should be written, what laws are passed, what movies get produced, who own the majority of companies and business organizations and sports teams, who lead most cities, and who comprise the majority of the most important of our elected leaders. It should be no surprise whatsoever that the restaurant industry mirrors this dynamic. Minority voices are not a significant part of this picture, if ever they were. 

Entrenched is right. Same problem in medicine - chair'men' of nearly all departments remain male/white. Even though woman make up >50% of the graduating class in medical schools. White males dominates culture, business, politics, and science. If you don't think this permeates almost every aspect of American society, you're blind to it or deluded.

The fact that woman don't make up a higher proportion of awarded chefs isn't a symptom. It's the disease itself.

Everyone knows about the rampant sexual harassment and assault in the restaurant workplace, the unequal pay, the sexism in promotions ... come on. You think that this is just a matter of statistics of why women/minorities don't get ahead?

[TrelayneNYC]

My partner and I like to play a game whenever we watch TV.

We live in one of the least diverse cities in the country -- San Francisco, where the percentage of African-Americans is actually decreasing (I can't remember official statistics but it's something like 8% in 2015, now 6% in 2017) -- and the commercials reflect that demographic.

We say a commercial is diverse if at least 50% of the people in the commercial are women and people of color. Double points if it's a woman who's also a person of color.

As you can imagine, most of what gets shown fails this test.

[DonRocks]

1 hour ago, TrelayneNYC said:

Why am I bothering to speak to privileged white folks? Good question.

There is precisely *one* WASP who has posted on this thread, and it's me. 

[silentbob]

21 minutes ago, TrelayneNYC said:

We live in one of the least diverse cities in the country -- San Francisco, where the percentage of African-Americans is actually decreasing (I can't remember official statistics but it's something like 8% in 2015, now 6% in 2017) -- and the commercials reflect that demographic.

I agreed with 99% of what you wrote up-thread, except for this part that confused me -- I thought the demographics of San Francisco (i.e., majority minority) made it one of the most diverse cities in the country?

[DonRocks]

[I made a mistake in not moderating this thread harder - I'd really rather these types of arguments not happen here again. Discussing a subject is fine, but extreme, barely on-topic views veering into politics, religion, race, etc. aren't - there are too many other places on the internet to make your voice heard, and I'd rather this website remain congenial and respectful of everyone. My personal views are just as strong and passionate as anyone's, but I don't voice them here - I believe this philosophy of running a website is what has kept our discussions congenial and on a high level. I'll take 100% of the blame for this one, for not doing my job as moderator. (I wonder if people here realize that I only delete 2-3 posts a month, and that I do 95% of my moderator's work behind the scenes, perhaps encouraging a poster to change a word or two - but I *never* edit the content of people's post, the one exception being if I see a blatant typo, sometimes I'll swoop in there and fix it.)]