James Beard Celebrity Chef tour makes only WA stop in Woodinville

The James Beard Foundation’s first awards for excellence in cuisine and culinary writing started in 1991, and since then it has been widely considered the Oscars of the food world. We’re thrilled to announce that our own freelance writer and foraging columnist Langdon Cook has been nominated for a James Beard award for his column in Eating Well magazine titled Into the Woods, about the search for wild mushrooms in Washington. Winners in the writing category will be announced April 26. 

We emailed Langdon to congratulate him and he said he was totally surprised by the nomination.

“Of course I’m honored to be part of this tradition…..it’s a great feeling,” he wrote back. “I should also mention that Jeremy Faber, of Seattle’s Foraged and Found Edibles and the subject of the piece, has always been very generous with me, and just following him around the woods makes for a compelling narrative. So I feel fortunate all around.”

We feel fortunate that the James Beard Foundation’s annual Celebrity Chef Tour is making its one and only Washington stop this year at 6:30 p.m Thursday, June 16 at Novelty Hill-Januik Winery in Woodinville. Executive Chef Seth Fernald will host a coast-to-coast gathering of chefs from Seattle (including Lauren Thompson of Cafe Juanita in Kirkland) and Boston (think Aaron Harmon of Temple Bar in Cambridge) to benefit the foundation and reflect Fernald’s bi-coastal influences (he moved to the Pacific Northwest from New England in 2013).

Tickets, which are $200, go on sale April 8 and will definitely sell out, so mark your calendar to purchase them here. The six-course dinner will be paired with limited-release wines (read: otherwise hard to find) and library wines from both wineries. You’re welcome.

Want a taste of Langdon’s writing? Check out one of his many columns for Seattle magazine here.