James Beard Foundation Awards: 2008 Winners

Tonight, in a very humid Manhattan, the bars and restaurants around the city are probably swimming with chefs, food writers, journalists, and well-connected foodies hitting the James Beard Award after-party circuit. Early yesterday I jotted down my personal picks and predictions for the book awards, and was much improved from my 1/14 record with the decidedly more eclectic IACP Awards. This time around I went 8/14 with bonus points for calling Cookbook of the Year, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's brilliant River Cottage Meat Book. We are not the type to brag, but this is the second year in a row (see The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook) where Amazon's Best Cookbook of the Year also took home James Beard's prestigious Cookbook of the Year.

On the chef front, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich won the Outstanding Restaurateur Award for Babbo; Chicago's Grant Achatz (whose battle with tongue cancer was recently profiled in The New Yorker) won Outstanding Chef for Alinea (and whose gorgeous upcoming fall cookbook will surely be on the Beard's short-list next year); Danny Meyer's Gramercy Tavern took home Outstanding Restaurant; and foodie favorite David Chang won Best Chef: New York City.

Book winners featured below. See the complete list of nominees and winners across categories and catch up with official blog coverage.

--BTP

2008 Winners

Cookbook of the Year:
The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall    

Cookbook Hall of Fame:
Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco by Paula Wolfert    

Asian Cooking:
My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking by Niloufer Ichaporia King

Baking and       Dessert:
Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor by Peter Reinhart

Cooking from a Professional Point of View:
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Cuisine by The French Culinary Institute with Judith Choate

Entertaining:
Dish Entertains by Trish Magwood

Americana:
A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson

General:
Cooking by James Peterson

Healthy Focus:
The EatingWell Diet by Jean Harvey-Berino with Joyce Hendley and the Editors of EatingWell

International:
The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan

Reference:
The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Wine and Spirits:
Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar by David Wondrich

Writing on Food:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Photography:
The Country Cooking of France by Anne Willan; Photographer: France Ruffenach