Hari Pulapaka of Cress welcomes AJ+ host Yara Elmjouie to his DeLand restaurant in a scene from the Beard-nominated video.
Looking for some normalcy, some of the same ol’ same ol’? Just look to the finalists for the James Beard Foundation Awards. They’re as lopsided and irrational as always, which you may find alternately comforting and infuriating.
In a normal years, the winners of the annual awards would have been announced in a gala ceremony in Chicago on Monday – the black-tie festivities have always been scheduled for the Monday closest to the birthday of James Beard.
But the New York-based foundation had put off the announcement of the finalists, which had been scheduled for late March, because of the uncertainty surrounding the stay at home directives.
Recognizing that an in-person awards ceremony is not likely for 2020, JBF decided to use May 4, the date that would have been the thirtieth anniversary of the awards ceremony, to name the finalists and to announce that the restaurant and chef awards will be presented during a live broadcast Friday, Sept. 25, on the Beard Foundation’s Twitter feed. Media awards – cookbooks, television shows, critic reviews – will be announced Wed., May 27.
But back to that normalcy. Central Florida’s chefs were once again snubbed and left off the list of finalists. We had only chance for recognition this year: Henry Moso of Kabooki Sushi was a seminfinalist for Rising Star Chef of the Year, a category for notable chefs under the age of 30. Maybe next year, chef. Oops, Moso is 29, so…
But one Central Florida chef is involved in a project nominated for a media award. Hari Pulapaka, chef and owner of Cress restaurant in DeLand, is featured in In Real Life – Why Eating This Fish Could Save Coral Reefs, a production of AJ+, an online-only channel of Al Jazeera Media Network. The 12-minute video, which can be viewed on YouTube, focuses on the lion fish, the invasive species’ danger to coral reefs and its tastiness when properly cooked. Pulapaka, long an advocate for use of sustainable seafood, handles that last part. (Look for Pulapaka at the 8:32 mark, though the whole video is worth watching.)
The Restaurant and Chef Awards have no surprises, even with changes the foundation implemented last year. For example, instead of being its own region, New York City was made part of a newly formed New York State region. The result? All five finalists are chefs cooking at restaurants in New York City. Sorry, all you chefs in Albany, Rochester and Buffalo, maybe next…well, probably never.
And here’s another non-surprise: The five finalists from the Great Lakes Region of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio are from Chicago.
As for the South region, in which Florida is lumped with Alabama, Arkansas, Puerto Rico, Mississippi and Louisiana, there is one nominee from San Juan, Puerto Rico. The others are from Louisiana. That is to say, the others are all from New Orleans.
