2006 Pellegrini Awards

Nominate Your Favorite Food Revolutionary Last November, Roger Downey, Seattle Weekly's food editor emeritus, announced the creation of the Angelo Pellegrini Award for distinguished service to the Seattle food community. The time has come for us to make good on our word. We're announcing the public call for nominations for the inaugural 2006 Pellegrini Awards.

The award's namesake, a University of Washington professor and author of The Unprejudiced Palate (1948), is a patron saint to anyone who cares about clean, beautiful food. Writing in an era when canned-food cookbooks and "super"-markets were changing the way America cooked, Pellegrini celebrated the good life as it centered around the garden and hearth. At the time, he was considered an elegist for a dying way of life. Now, he is seen as a forerunner to Alice Waters, PCC, and the farmers market movement.

Chances are he was also a role model for whomever will be honored with this year's Pellegrini Award. Nominate your favorite farmer, restaurateur, activist, or anyone else who you think has shaped the way Seattle eats (or at least the way you do). Submit your nominations by e-mailing foodaward@seattleweekly.com. Tell us who you're nominating and write a sentence or two about why. The submission deadline is Friday, Aug. 30.

The nominations will then be peer-reviewed by three judges who have all helped inspire Seattle's devotion to seasonal, local cuisine: Bruce Naftaly, chef-proprietor of Le Gourmand and Sambar; Chris Curtis, co-founder of Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets; and Jo Robinson, author of Pasture Perfect. We will announce the judging panel's selection in our Oct. 18 issue. Jonathan Kauffman