2015 James Beard Award Nominees Announced

Nominees for the annual James Beard Awards, which honor chefs, restaurants, writers and other professionals in the world of American food, were announced Tuesday morning. The list of restaurant and chef nominees is below; the winners will be announced in Chicago on May 4. A full list of nominees in print, broadcast and other categories can be found on the James Beard Foundation website.

Best New Restaurant

Bâtard, New York

Central Provisions, Portland, Me.

Cosme, New York

Parachute, Chicago

Petit Trois, Los Angeles

The Progress, San Francisco

Spoon and Stable, Minneapolis

Outstanding Baker

Joanne Chang, Flour Bakery & Cafe, Boston

Mark Furstenberg, Bread Furst, Washington

Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery, New York

Belinda Leong and Michel Suas, B. Patisserie, San Francisco

William Werner, Craftsman and Wolves, San Francisco

Outstanding Bar Program

Arnaud’s French 75 Bar, New Orleans

Bar Agricole, San Francisco

Maison Premiere, Brooklyn

Trick Dog, San Francisco

The Violet Hour, Chicago

Outstanding Chef

Michael Anthony, Gramercy Tavern, New York

Sean Brock, Husk, Charleston, S.C.

Suzanne Goin, Lucques, Los Angeles

Donald Link, Herbsaint, New Orleans

Marc Vetri, Vetri, Philadelphia

Outstanding Pastry Chef

Dana Cree, Blackbird, Chicago

Maura Kilpatrick, Oleana, Cambridge, Mass.

Dahlia Narvaez, Osteria Mozza, Los Angeles

Ghaya Oliveira, Daniel, New York

Christina Tosi, Momofuku, New York

Outstanding Restaurant

Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

Highlands Bar and Grill, Birmingham, Ala.

Momofuku Noodle Bar, New York

Per Se, New York

The Spotted Pig, New York

Outstanding Restaurateur

JoAnn Clevenger, Upperline, New Orleans

Donnie Madia, One Off Hospitality Group, Chicago (Blackbird, Avec, the Publican and others)

Michael Mina, Mina Group, San Francisco (Michael Mina, RN74, Bourbon Steak and others)

Cindy Pawlcyn, Napa, Calif. (Mustards Grill, Cindy’s Back Street Kitchen and Cindy’s Waterfront at the Monterey Bay Aquarium)

Stephen Starr, Starr Restaurants, Philadelphia (the Dandelion, Talula’s Garden, Serpico and others)

Outstanding Service

The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Walland, Tenn.

Marea, New York

Quince, San Francisco

Restaurant August, New Orleans

Topolobampo, Chicago

Outstanding Wine Program

A16, San Francisco

Bern’s Steak House, Tampa, Fla.

FIG, Charleston, S.C.

McCrady’s, Charleston, S.C.

Spago, Beverly Hills, Calif.

Outstanding Wine, Beer or Spirits Professional

Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, Del.

Ron Cooper, Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal, Ranchos de Taos, N.M.

Ted Lemon, Littorai Wines, Sebastopol, Calif.

Rajat Parr, Mina Group, San Francisco

Harlen Wheatley, Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, Ky.

Rising Star Chef of the Year

Tanya Baker, Boarding House, Chicago

Alex Bois, High Street on Market, Philadelphia

Erik Bruner-Yang, Toki Underground, Washington

Jessica Largey, Manresa, Los Gatos, Calif.

Cara Stadler, Tao Yuan, Brunswick, Me.

Ari Taymor, Alma, Los Angeles

Best Chef: Great Lakes

Curtis Duffy, Grace, Chicago

Jonathon Sawyer, The Greenhouse Tavern, Cleveland

Paul Virant, Vie, Western Springs, Ill.

Erling Wu-Bower, Nico Osteria, Chicago

Andrew Zimmerman, Sepia, Chicago

Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic

Joe Cicala, Le Virtù, Philadelphia

Spike Gjerde, Woodberry Kitchen, Baltimore

Rich Landau, Vedge, Philadelphia

Greg Vernick, Vernick Food & Drink, Philadelphia

Cindy Wolf, Charleston, Baltimore

Best Chef: Midwest

Paul Berglund, The Bachelor Farmer, Minneapolis

Justin Carlisle, Ardent, Milwaukee

Gerard Craft, Niche, Clayton, Mo.

Michelle Gayer, Salty Tart, Minneapolis

Lenny Russo, Heartland Restaurant & Farm Direct Market, St. Paul

Best Chef: Northeast

Karen Akunowicz, Myers & Chang, Boston

Barry Maiden, Hungry Mother, Cambridge, Mass.

Masa Miyake, Miyake, Portland, Me.

Cassie Piuma, Sarma, Somerville, Mass.

Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley, Eventide Oyster Co., Portland, Me.

Best Chef: Northwest

Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton, Ox, Portland, Ore.

Renee Erickson, The Whale Wins, Seattle

Blaine Wetzel, The Willows Inn on Lummi Island, Lummi Island, Wash.

Justin Woodward, Castagna, Portland, Ore.

Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi, Joule, Seattle

Best Chef: New York

Marco Canora, Hearth

Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, Carbone

Mark Ladner, Del Posto

Anita Lo, Annisa

Ignacio Mattos, Estela

Jonathan Waxman, Barbuto

Best Chef: South

Vishwesh Bhatt, Snackbar, Oxford, Miss.

Justin Devillier, La Petite Grocery, New Orleans

Jose Enrique, Jose Enrique, San Juan, P.R.

Slade Rushing, Brennan’s, New Orleans

Alon Shaya, Domenica, New Orleans

Best Chef: Southeast

John Fleer, Rhubarb, Asheville, N.C.

Edward Lee, 610 Magnolia, Louisville, Ky.

Steven Satterfield, Miller Union, Atlanta

Jason Stanhope, FIG, Charleston, S.C.

Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman, Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, Memphis

Tandy Wilson, City House, Nashville

Best Chef: Southwest

Kevin Binkley, Binkley’s, Cave Creek, Ariz.

Aaron Franklin, Franklin Barbecue, Austin, Tex.

Bryce Gilmore, Barley Swine, Austin, Tex.

Hugo Ortega, Hugo’s, Houston

Martín Rios, Restaurant Martín, Santa Fe, N.M.

Justin Yu, Oxheart, Houston

Best Chef: West

Matthew Accarrino, SPQR, San Francisco

Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski, State Bird Provisions, San Francisco

Michael Cimarusti, Providence, Los Angeles

Corey Lee, Benu, San Francisco

Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, Animal, Los Angeles

2015 James Beard Foundation America’s Classics

Archie’s Waeside, Le Mars, Iowa

Beaumont Inn, Harrodsburg, Ky.

Guelaguetza, Los Angeles

Sally Bell’s Kitchen, Richmond, Va.

Sevilla Restaurant, New York

Valentine Cupcakes are Best Love Buns

In another time I'd have been satisfied with calling these Valentine's Day Cupcakes but, as the saying goes, if you're going to get wet, you may as well go swimming. (These are love buns)

for the cupcakes (buns)

• 9 tablespoons soft butter
• ⅔ cup superfine sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 - 3 tablespoons milk

for the topping

• 2 large egg whites
• ½ cup golden syrup or light corn syrup
• ½ cup superfine sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 packet heart-shaped sprinkles (to decorate)

Directions

1. Take everything you need out of the fridge in time to bring to room temperature - this makes a huge difference to the lightness of the love buns later - and preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200°C/400ºF.
2. Put all of the ingredients for the buns, except for the milk, into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel, to make a smooth dropping consistency.
3. Divide the mixture into a 12-bun muffin tin lined with muffin papers or heart-patterned cases, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. They should have risen and be golden on top; you want a little peak if possible.
4. Let them cool a little in their tin on a rack, and then take them carefully out of the tin to cool in their papers, still on the wire rack.
5. Now for the topping. Here there is a slight dilemma, as you'll make more than you need for the 12 buns, but if you halve the quantities, you won't have quite enough. If you're making these for you and your one true love, then I presume you won't need all 12 of them, in which case you could freeze most of the buns to be iced and eaten at some later date, and halve the topping ingredients to decorate the few you want today.
6. This is a topping that has a kind of meringue base, by which you whisk egg whites over heat until they're stiff and gleaming. Think Mr Whippy. So make a doubleboiler with a bowl that will fit snugly over a saucepan of barely simmering water, and put all of the ingredients for the icing, except for the vanilla and sprinkles, into the bowl. Whisk everything with an electric beater until the icing becomes thick and holds peaks like a meringue. This will take about 5 minutes, so be patient.
7. Take the bowl off the saucepan and on to a cool surface and keep whisking while you add the vanilla. Then keep whisking until the mixture cools a little. You want a proper peaked and whipped covering here, so spoon some icing over each bun, and then dollop another spoonful over in a swirly fashion. Immediately shake over your choice of sprinkles, as the icing will set very quickly. Indeed, these look rather like stage prop buns or the fake ones that some bakeries used to keep in their windows, so plasticky and gleaming are they.

CHICKEN WITH CHORIZO AND CANNELLINI BEANS

This may sound a kind of fancy thing to be making at the end of a working day, but it is fabulously easy, fabulously quick and everything can be bought at a quick supermarket stop in your lunch hour. Yes, chicken stock is itemised, but I use 500ml of boiling water to which I've added a tablespoonful or so of Benedicta Touch of Taste Concentrated Chicken Bouillon - one of my storecupboard standbys.

Ingredients

• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1   chicken breast (skinless or chicken supreme)
• approx. 5 oz trimmed kale
• 2 teaspoons olive oil (not extra virgin)
• 4 oz chorizo (sliced then chopped)
• 1 x 15 oz tin cannellini beans (drained)
• 1 sprinkling of smoked sweet paprika

Method

1. In a saucepan, bring the stock to a gentle boil, lower in the chicken portion and cook, still gently, for 10 minutes or until all trace of pink has disappeared. Pierce with the point of a knife to check.
2. Meanwhile, cook the kale, which you've roughly torn into pieces, in boiling salted water for about 5 minutes (if it's tough) and drain. Then heat the oil in a frying pan, throw in the chopped chorizo, add the drained cannellini and, stirring, warm everything through, moistening with a couple of tablespoons or so of the chicken broth - or more if you want this soupier.
3. Tip the beans and chorizo into a shallow bowl or lipped plate, roughly arrange the kale on top (drizzling with a little extra-virgin olive oil if you like) and then lift the cooked chicken out of the stock with a spatula or fish slice and sit this on top of the kale ruff. Sprinkle the pale chicken breast with the paprika and gaze at your Spanish still life of a supper before eating it.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Always in Season

Along with chocolate, there is much comfort to be gleaned from reading cookbooks. This recipe combines two loves by being chocolatey to the point of madness and having revealed itself to me after a cosy, snuggled-down read of Elinor Klivans' glorious Big Fat Cookies. What I do is make up the full batch of these (hard to divide it really, since it contains only 1 egg) and form all 12 cookies, but bake only half and freeze the other half. I freeze them on a little tray and, once they're hard, I bung them in a freezer bag, seal it and stash it back in the freeze, to bake them unthawed at a later date. That way, I've got 6 chocolate cookies to keep me and my family happy without any time or effort.

This is what I call an investment. And it's worth it - these are the chocolatiest cookies you will ever come across.

Ingredients

• 4 oz bittersweet chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa (sieved)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick soft unsalted butter
• ½ cup soft light brown sugar
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg (cold from the fridge)
• 2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (or semi sweet chocolate morsels)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Melt the 125g / 4oz bittersweet chocolate either in the microwave or in a heatproof dish over a pan of simmering water.
2. Put the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt into a bowl.
3. Cream the butter and sugars in another bowl. (I use my freestanding mixer, itself an odd source of comfort to me.) Add the melted chocolate and mix together.
4. Beat in the vanilla extract and cold egg, and then mix in the dry ingredients. Finally stir in the chocolate morsels or chips.
5. Scoop out 12 equal-sized mounds - an ice cream scoop and a palette knife are the best tools for the job - and place on a lined baking sheet about 6cm apart. Do not flatten them.
6. Cook for 18 minutes, testing with a cake tester to make sure it comes out semi-clean and not wet with cake batter. If you pierce a chocolate chip, try again.
7. Leave to cool slightly on the baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden as they cool.

Recipe Courtesy Nigella.com

Linguine with Lemon, Garlic and Mushrooms Just Right

This is one of my proudest creations and, I suppose, a good example of a recipe that isn't originally from Italy, but sits uncontroversially in her culinary canon. I don't think it would be too presumptuous to namethis linguine ai funghi crudi. It is about as speedy as you can imagine: you do no more to the mushrooms than slice them, steep them in oil, garlic, lemon and thyme and toss them into the hot cooked pasta.

If all you can find is regular button mushrooms, this pasta is still worth making - so no excuses.

Serves: 4­-6

Instructions

1. Slice the mushrooms finely, and put in a large bowl with the oil, salt, crushed garlic, lemon juice and zest,

Ingredients

7.94 oz cremini mushrooms

⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon sea salt flakes (or 1½ teaspoons table salt)

1 small clove garlic (crushed)

zest and juice of 1 lemon

4 sprigs fresh thyme (leaves stripped off)

1 lb linguine

1 bunch fresh parsley (chopped)

2 - 3 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese (or to taste)

Instructions

1. Slice the mushrooms finely, and put in a large bowl with the oil, salt, crushed garlic, lemon juice and zest, freshly ground black pepperand marvellously scented thyme leaves.

2. Cook the pasta according to packet instructions and drain loosely, retaining some water. Quickly put the

drained pasta into the bowl with the mushroom mixture.

3. Toss everything together well, then add the chopped parsley, grated cheese and pepper to taste, before

tossing again, and eat with joy in your heart.

Additional information - for vegetarians replace the Parmesan with vegetarian alternativ

Recipe Courtesy Nigella.com