INSIDE THE BEARD HOUSE!

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

Fantastic! Of particular interest are salaries, operating costs and "expenses".

Any first hand stories from sommeliers (I've heard some good ones), chefs, restaurant managers, vendors?

Look likes Tony's starting his own little Jim Garrison inquistion...

[Bux]

And the awards themselves seem all to be preceded by a mini-commercial: "The Ronco Miracle Egg Scrambler Best Chef Hawaii-Alaska Award"  and the signage seems to usually bear the imprint of AmEX or somebody else...

You're not thinking someday you'll be invited to the Kraft ® James Beard House someday? Universities have long sold their libraries as well as athletic fields and the pros have followed suit with ballparks, albeit with considerably less conflict of interest.

My guess is that the industry circles the wagons about issues like this one. Part of it is due to some natural sense of self defense, part is do to not wanting to bite the hand that may feed them and part is probably a genuine belief that the organization does enough good for the industry to overlook any abuses. It does offer scholarship and it does offer a chance for chefs and restaurants to be seen in NYC. The questions are is it worth the price and even if it is, could it do better.

I once had the opportunity to have a meal there that featured a dish I had not too long before in the restaurant that was providing the meal. By no stretch of the imagination was it quite the same dish for many reasons including ingredients and the inability to produce the same preparation in the Beard kitchen. I've never quite understood why a New Yorker would want to buy a meal cooked there by a chef with his own restaurant in NY. In addition, I've always rather assumed that when an out of town chef cooks there, I'm not going to experience his food at it's best. Is that chef best served by my pleading ignorance of his food when the subject comes up, or by my commenting on how he prepared a meal under less than ideal conditions. That's been my dilemma regarding the meals there. On the other hand, since the money's going to a good cause, I should have no regrets. Whoops, thats where we came in, isn't it.

[Fat Guy]

Yeah!! C'mon, Shaw! I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Get digging journo-boy! Let's make news!

Or maybe we should open a competing institution:

The Bourdain House

From its six-story complex in Bedford-Stuyvesant, The Bourdain House offers the following services:

Floor 1 - Immigration law assistance, employment services, ESL instruction

Floor 2 - Topless bar, massage parlor, adult video center

Floor 3 - Multimedia chef-education center

Floor 4 - 24-hour pizzeria, delicatessen, noodle shop, and taqueria

Floor 5 - Events level, featuring dinners prepared by chefs from around the world, a speakers series, and live video broadcasts nightly

Floor 6/roof - Basketball court aka "Bourdain's office"

Basement - Opium den

[Fat Guy]

[docsconz]

Talk about a restaurant doing a dinner as a bad investment... Phil Mihalski of Nell's in Seattle was scheduled and fully prepared to do his dinner there on the evening of September 11, 2001. He wound up donating it to the relief effort.

[bourdain]

Fat Guy: You forgot the Foundation's fabulous Tiki Lounge--where EVERY hour is Hapy Hour. "Show us your burns and the first five drinks are on the house."

[Fat Guy]

I like that we're already calling it "the Foundation."

[pixelchef]

I just wanted to say that I adore this thread. Thanks for the laugh. :)

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

Fat Guy: You forgot the Foundation's fabulous  Tiki Lounge--where EVERY hour is Hapy Hour. "Show us your burns and the first five drinks are on the house."

I think you guys should have an UN-happy hour...drinks are double the price and are served by the farm team Hooter's girls...

[MatthewB]

Looks like you guys are already making an impact.

Today's NYT: Foundations Roiled by Measure to Spur Increase in Charity

[FlaJoe]

Thus far I have been unsuccessful in getting any info on the Beard House. Now, there could be two reasons for that. One, my considerable lack of computer skills (always a possibility), or, the Beard House could be under a different corporate name.

Both the NY State Tax Board and the IRS do not have the James Beard House, or the James Beard Foundation is their databases.

Any NY'ers here, with info on the Beard House, know if they under a different corporate name?

Hell, I may have to make a donation, and ask see their finances before completing the transaction. Maybe that would work.

[sammy]

I checked and they're not on the Better Business Bureau board of registered charities either.

[Jason Perlow]

Fat Guy: You forgot the Foundation's fabulous  Tiki Lounge--where EVERY hour is Hapy Hour. "Show us your burns and the first five drinks are on the house."

The other thing thats great about the Bourdain Foundation is the adjoining rehab clinic to the Tiki Lounge... extremely convenient, equipped with convalescing rooms with high speed internet and eGullet pre-programmed as the home page on all the flat screens.

[pixelchef]

Don't forget to stop in at Cobra Heart Cafe, Durian2go, or Fetal Duck Egg Express in the roof of the foundation. All prepared lovingly by tortured Mexican immigrants under the watchful eye of the INS.

[Fat Guy]

FlaJoe, it's James Beard Foundation, Inc., 167 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011, EIN: 13-2752108

The best tool to start with is Guidestar.

http://www.guidestar.org/controller/search...=1&npoId=502760

You can also do FOIL requests through the state AG's office and the foundation itself.

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/charities/foil.html

[Fat Guy]

Vic, Jason, Pixel, you're confused as usual: the features you're talking about aren't in operation yet. They're planned for the Newark branch. The original Brooklyn house is packed to the gills already, and all extra secret space is already in use for hiding illegal immigrants.

A couple of years ago, I considered a big investigative piece on the Beard Foundation. I couldn't find a willing publisher, and it was too much time to waste writing about on my little Web site (as you all know, I never waste time), so I applied for some James Beard Journalism Awards instead. That was probably better for my career on the whole, which I think highlights why there aren't many people in the food world who would be willing to tackle this subject in a big way. But hey, now we have our own magazine and we can publish whatever the hell we want. So if everybody wants to team up and do the research, we can publish some sort of report. Of course, we may not uncover anything sinister -- let's not let it be a self-fulfilling effort -- but I think it's time someone held the JB Foundation up to the light.

[Lady T]

Damn, am I glad I'm flying to NYC tomorrow, or what? This is gonna be fun!

Shouldn't there be a coach house out at the back of the Foundation property to house visiting chefs/journos/eGulletarians? With a sliding scale of payment depending on income? Where on the second floor will the infirmary be, by the way, where cooks can go to have their slashes stitched and their burns treated free of charge (and the painkillers are plentiful and gratis!)?

(Edited to include the afterthought)

Edited May 19, 2003 by Lady T (log)

[FlaJoe]

A cursory review of the Beard House's IRS Form 990 for the fiscal year, ending 3/31/00, shows no "red flags". Their administrative expenses are a little over 400,000 on total revenues of almost 4.1 million. That really falls into the norm for non-profits (10-12% of the gross). So, no one is getting rich working there.

I assume their fixed assets of almost 1.2 million is the townhouse, a good investment.

What is interesting is, judging by their figures, the chefs really get screwed (I could use a stronger word, but I am trying to be clean here!), when they do dinners at the House. There really is nothing set aside to compensate the chefs for their work. Also, with only a little over $100,000 in contributions, you can't even set up a workable budget for chefs with that little an amount.

Now, a finer tooth comb obviously could dissect how they could distribute their money better, but, at first glance, there is nothing sinister here.

I still submit, however, they could do more with the money than they are, when it comes to growing the industry. That, however, is a sign of mismanagement, not ill deeds. This seems to be the case, upon this cursory review of their finances.

[GordonCooks]

Don't forget to stop in at Cobra Heart Cafe, Durian2go, or Fetal Duck Egg Express in the roof of the foundation.  All prepared lovingly by tortured Mexican immigrants under the watchful eye of the INS.

I have to register a complaint - everything I ordered came with a shot of jack in a dirty cup and I found a gold tooth in my tamale

[Niall]

The triumphant Aussie/Yank kitchen cew adjourned to VERITAS where they were joined by the brilliant and volatile PHILIPPA COOKE of Melbourne's ONDINE restaurant, and Veritas chef SCOTT BRYAN for an evening of savage drinking and gossip. Prospects for  next year's All-Koala Menu was a subject of pained and bemused discussion.

I was at a cooking class with Matt Moran last night and he told us a pretty interesting story about this drinking session and a glass of '61 latour pomerol he skulled without knowing what it was. He told us about how Tony and everyone else there had a good laugh at his expense. He is a very funny man. He is also doing a Market tour followed by a morning in his kitchen followed by dego lunch with 10 people on a few Fridays; we enrolled this morning for August 15th and I can't wait.