Friday night, a crowd gathered under the twinkling lit arches of the Ferry Building to attend the inaugural Good Food Awards. Hundreds of commercially available products from around the country were submitted, tasted, and judged in a smattering of categories: beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, pickles, and preserves. In the end, 71 products made the cut and were recognized at the event.
La Cocina's Caleb Zigas emceed, introducing the keynote speaker, none other than Alice Waters. Waters spoke eloquently on the evolution of the food movement, from simply searching to find good, flavorful food to striving to make that food from clean, sustainable products. Invariably, the latter would lead to the former. (Fun fact: Alice Waters is vehemently opposed to jaywalking. You read it here first.)
Each subsequent category was introduced by a luminary in the field, many of whom were Bay Area figures: Bruce Aidells spoke of the power of salumi, and jam maker extraordinaire June Taylor discussed preserves in her chipper British accent. The winners of each category were then read off by local foodlebrities: Eileen Hassi of Ritual Coffee, Tia Harrison of Avedano's, Jen Dalton of Kitchen Table Consulting, Dave McLean of Magnolia Pub and Brewery, David Salowich of Bittersweet Café, and Karen Solomon, author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It, who whipped the crowd into a frenzy with her spirited reading of the winners' names in the pickles category.
Within each category, awardees were grouped by region, and within the West region, the Bay Area and Northern California had a good showing, 15 in all. The full list of all 71 winners can be found on the Good Food Awards site, but we'd like to call out the local talent:
Beer
Bison Brewing (Berkeley) ― Organic gingerbread ale
Drake's Brewing (San Leandro) ― Denoggenizer
Marin Brewing Company (Larkspur) ― ESChi
North Coast Brewing Company (Ft. Bragg) ― Pranqster
Charcuterie
Café Rouge (Berkeley) ― Smoked beef tongue
The Girl and the Fig (Sonoma) ― Coppa
Cheese
Cowgirl Creamery (Petaluma) ― Red Hawk
Nicasio Valley Cheese Company (Nicasio) ― Nicasio Square
Chocolate
Charles Chocolates (San Francisco) ― Salty sweet cashew bar
Coffee
Blue Bottle Coffee (Oakland) ― Kemgin
Pickles
Ceres Community Project (Sebastopol) ― Arame and ginger sauerkraut salad
Cultured (Berkeley) ― Spicy oregano purple carrots
Preserves
Happy Girl Kitchen (Monterey) ― Apricot chile jam
Middleton Farm (Healdsburg) ― Raspberry
Plumline (Santa Cruz) ― Damson plum
