Chefs Collaborative Celebrates 2012 Sustainability Awardees
Chefs, Farmers and Activists Honored in Seattle by their Peers
Seattle – (October 3, 2012) The 2012 Chefs Collaborative Sustainability Awardees were celebrated at a luncheon emcee’d by Kim Severson of The New York Times at the Seattle Art Museum on Tuesday, October 2nd during the fourth annual Chefs Collaborative Sustainable Food Summit. Watch the luncheon highlights video.
The Summit, which was oversold, brought together more than 300 sustainability-minded chefs and food professionals from around the country for an educational and community-building conference on sustainability in restaurant and food service kitchens. Sessions included topics like beef production methods, managing food costs and the role of chefs as advocates. This year’s theme was “Flavors of a Foodshed,” a nod to the bounty of ingredients in the Pacific Northwest.
“The winners reflected the best of this region’s and this country’s efforts to build a more sustainable food system,” said Chef Michael Leviton of Lumiere in Newton, MA and Area Four in Cambridge, MA and chair of the Chefs Collaborative board.
The 2012 Sustainability Award winners were:
Pathfinder
Paul Willis
Founder and Manager, Niman Ranch Pork Company, Thornton, Iowa
This award recognizes a visionary working in the greater food community who has been a catalyst for positive change within the food system through efforts that go beyond the kitchen.
Foodshed Champion
Lora Lea and Rick Misterly
Owners, Quillisascut Farm, Rice, WA
This award recognizes a food producer (farmer, fisher, artisanal producer) in the Pacific Northwest committed to working with chefs and who exemplifies the following principle: Good food begins with unpolluted air, land, and water, environmentally sustainable farming and fishing, and humane animal husbandry.
Sustainer
Kären Jurgensen
Chef/Instructor, Seattle Culinary Academy, Seattle, WA
This award recognizes a chef who has been both a great mentor and is a model to the culinary community through his/her purchases of seasonal, sustainable ingredients and the transformation of these ingredients into delicious food.
In addition, chefs John Ash, Tom Douglas, and Jimmy Schmidt were inducted into the Pioneers Table – the Chefs Collaborative equivalent of the hall of fame.
WATCH: Check out these video highlights of the 2012 Summit!
This year, Summit participants heard from Ruth Reichl, former editor in chief of Gourmet Magazine, Kim Severson of the New York Times, Rowan Jacobsen, author of five books including a Geography of Oysters, chef Tom Douglas of Tom Douglas Restaurants, and many others to discuss food and cooking, culture and sustainability.
WATCH: Ruth Reichl’s keynote speech kicked off the Summit
We fabricated goat carcasses, offered in-depth beef butchering lessons and baked with heritage grains. We discussed the challenges of sourcing sustainably raised poultry and looking at traceability and other tools in seafood sourcing, as well as deciphered the nuts and bolts of running a sustainable restaurant, to name a few details.
“The highlight of the Summit for me,” says Rich Garcia, executive chef of Boston’s 606 Congress and Boston Local Network Leader, “is the chance to meet chefs I’ve looked up to throughout the course of my career.” Read Rich’s Recap of the Summit.
Photography by Vera Chang.
