Acheson and Edge Take James Beard Foundation Awards

Georgia's own Hugh Acheson and former Atlantan John T. Edge took home medals at the James Beard Foundation Book, Broadcast, and Journalism Awards this weekend. The ceremony was held on Friday in New York City, and afterwards, the two celebrated their wins with a group over karaoke and handles of bourbon.

Acheson's book, A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented For Your Kitchen won for best American cookbook. It features recipes for everything from lobster pie and frogmore stew to roasted fig tartlets and sweet tea creme brulee, complete with handwritten notes and line drawings from the chef himself. The MFK Fischer Distinguished Writing Award went to Edge for his piece "BBQ Nation," an essay on barbecue as an art form. The first sentence reads, "I grew up in central Georgia, near Macon, one-half mile from Old Clinton Barbecue, a tin-roofed, sawdust-floored roadhouse shrouded in hickory smoke."

The JBF Restaurant and Chef Awards are tonight, and Acheson and Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene are both finalists in the Best Southeastern Chef category. Hopkins has been nominated for the medal five times and says in an interview over at the AJC that he "wants to win this time." See the full list of 2012 finalists here, all of the winners from Friday night here, and a bonus picture of fellow Atlantan Alton Brown at the Empire State Building lighting ceremony here.
· BBQ Nation: The Preservation of a Culinary Art Form [Saveur]
· Hopkins on Beard Chef Award: 'I Want to Win This Time' [AJC]
· James Beard Foundation [Twitter]
· Winners: 2012 JBF Book, Broadcast & Journalism Awards [-EN-]
· Here Are the 2012 James Beard Awards Finalists [-EN-]