Friday Food Pt. 2

Today, those sweet face-stuffers over at the James Beard Foundation announced their nominees for the 2006 James Beard Awards. (Essentially, they are the Oscars of the restaurant world. Big black tie awards ceremony with the most amazing catering in the world after.)

Having not eaten at most of the nominees (and, with NYC totally snubbed for the all important "Best Restaurant in the Universe" award [although making a good showing with 2 nominees in the all important "Best Chef in the Universe" category {Portale and Colicchio, if you're wondering, who are probably the Dame Judi Dench and Meryl Streep of the Beards}]), I can't really speak about anything...



...except dessert. having eaten only 2 out of the 5 nominees sweets, I'd like to throw my hat in for Sam Mason of wd-50. (You can see Bri's mega post about our tasting menu extravaganza.) Not only did he manage to match madman Wylie Dufrense's savories in sheer originality, he might have surpassed them in taste. He also probably has the most unnecessarily cool website for a pastry chef.

Hopefully he wins. It'll make me feel better about Wylie losing on Iron Chef.

(Photo: butternut squash sorbet, coffee "soil" and basil. From sammasonnyc.com)