James Beard Foundation

The James Beard Chef Awards have just wrapped up in New York City, and Los Angeles took home zero awards.

It's hard to resist feeling kinda whiny when looking at the list of winners and considering that New York City got 7 awards and accounted for 50% of all the non-region-specific awards (as well as having their very own region). Chicago took 3 awards. San Francisco took 2. But L.A. has nothing this year worthy of recognizing? It's a little deflating.

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James Beard Foundation

The James Beard Book Broadcast and Journalism awards were held this past Saturday night, and a whole new crop of book authors, TV and radio folks and food journalists were honored with what is still considered the food world's greatest honor -- a James Beard medal.

You can see the full list of winners below, but we're especially excited about a few of the award recipients. Anne Willan, Santa Monica resident, cookbook author and collector of rare cookbooks was inducted into the Cookbook Hall of Fame. Tejal Rao, restaurant critic at our sister paper The Village Voice was awarded the Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award. And Mike Sula, critic at The Chicago Reader, was awarded the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing award for this straight awesome piece he wrote about eating squirrel.

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e_calamar via flickr

El Celler de Can Roca in Spain is this year's No. 1 restaurant.

You know how Noma is often referred to as the "best restaurant in the world"? That's thanks mainly to the World's 50 Best Restaurants List, an annual ranking compiled by Restaurant magazine and sponsored by San Pellegrino. Well, that list has just come out, and Noma is no longer on top. Spain retook the glory with El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, taking the No. 1 spot (in 2009 Spain's El Bulli held the place of prestige). Noma moved to the No. 2 spot.

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James Beard Foundation

The James Beard Foundation unveiled award finalists earlier this morning. Among the hometown candidates who remain contenders for the award are the following:

Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo (Animal) for Best Chef: West (CA, HI, NV); Piero Selvaggio (Valentino, Valentino Vin Bar) and Carolyn Styne (Lucques, Tavern and A.O.C.) for Outstanding Restaurateur; Suzanne Goin (Lucques) and Nancy Silverton (Pizzeria Mozza) for Outstanding Chef;
Commune Design (FarmShop) was also named for Outstanding Restaurant Design: 75 Seats and Under.

On the media side, Los Angeles magazine's Lesley Bargar Suter (Food Coverage in a General-Interest Publication) and Patric Kuh (Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award) were named for their coverage of food in L.A.

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Melisse.com

Mélisse chef Josiah Citrin (left) in his kitchen

Forbes Travel Guide has released its annual hotel, restaurant and spa ratings, and Mélisse has received the highest rating, five stars.

Josiah Citrin's Santa Monica restaurant is one of only 28 restaurants nationally to receive the highest ranking, and one of four in California. What does the five-star rating mean? According to the website's star-rating explanation, "These top-of-the-line hotels, restaurants and spas are the best in the world." Of Mélisse, the anonymous inspectors had to say this:

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The IACP, which would be the International Association of Culinary Professionals and not the International Association of Chiefs of Police -- yes, that's an old joke now, but you try googling IACP and see what you get -- announced their 2013 award finalists this morning for four of their prestigious awards, including the cookbook category.

This year, highlights include Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem, Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel for Bouchon Bakery, Charles Phan for Vietnamese Home Cooking, Naomi Duguid for Burma: Rivers of Flavor, and many more worthy books. Saveur, Food & Wine and Gilt Taste were among the notable publications nominated for great stories.

The awards have been given out for the last 27 years. Winners will be announced at IACP's awards ceremony on April 9 in San Francisco as part of IACP's 35th annual conference. For those of you not among the initiated, the IACP describes itself thusly: "Founded in 1978, IACP connects culinary professionals with the people, places, and knowledge they need to succeed. IACP boasts members from 32 countries and serves as the leading forum for culinary professionals from all backgrounds." Turn the page for the complete list.

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The James Beard Foundation has just announced their semifinalists for the 2013 chef and restaurant awards. To be clear, this is not a list of nominees, but rather a list from which the nominees will be chosen.

L.A. has quite a showing, in the national categories as well as in our region.

For Best New Restaurant (national), BierBeisl and Tar & Roses are on the semifinalist list. (See our review of BierBeisl here and Tar & Roses here).

For Outstanding Bar Program (national), The Varnish and Rivera are on the list.

For Outstanding Chef (national), Suzanne Goin and Nancy Silverton are on the list.

For Outstanding Pastry Chef (national) Karen Hatfield is the lone L.A. contender.

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NBC

Besties Amy Poehler and Tina Fey

Those zany gal pals Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have come up for a drinking (and eating and stripping) game for the 70th Annual Golden Globes, which they will be hosting this Sunday on NBC. As Fey told the Hollywood Reporter, "When you get a bunch of people in a room who don't eat much, and you give them one drink, it gets good fast."

Poehler added: "The Golden Globes is the one time where the beautiful people of movies rub shoulders with the ragged people in TV. We have a lot of TV people whose behavior, frankly, we're not going to be able to predict because they're just lucky to be there!"

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The Association of Food Journalists conference is taking part right now in Washington D.C., and this afternoon over lunch the ceremony took place for the AFJ's annual awards. 42 winners were announced in 13 catagories.

LA Weekly took home two prizes during the awards: Food Editor Amy Scattergood took second place for Best Food Blog for this here blog you're reading, Squid Ink. Freelancer Beth Barrett took first place in the Best Newspaper Food News Story with her LA Weekly story, "L.A. Farmers Markets Exposed."

I took first place for Best Newspaper Special Food Project for my 2011 Food Issue for Creative Loafing in Atlanta, which focused on the cooks, servers and bartenders of that city.

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Flickr/lilgatie1701

"Sesame Street" received 16 nominations, second only to "General Hospital's" 23.

In case you were wondering what Regis and Kelly, Dr. Drew, Alex Trebek and Cookie Monster will be noshing on at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards presentation at the Beverly Hilton this Saturday afternoon (airing at 5 p.m. PT on HLN), here is the rundown. (If you are a starving would-be soap actor, stand outside the back door and maybe they will throw you some canapés.)

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