Beard House

[bourdain]

It's easy enough to see what's WRONG with the Beard House. That's been evident for years (though certainly not the full extent of the financial excess and irregularity). And a head or two will surely roll--followed by some soul-searching--and hopefully some reorganization in the wake of all the revelations.

Fact remains that the Beard House IS the only game in town, the preeminent organization to honor, publicize, celebrate--and hopefully, one day-support and assist a craft and an industry they claim to love. So how to do this? How to do the right thing AND quickly dispel the notion that they are in fact an elite dining club for a privileged few who like to live high on the hog, toot their own horns, celebrate themselves and the cult of James Beard? How to fix the perception problem? How to fix the mess?

1) Understand that the CULTURE of the Beard House has to be completely overhauled. While I have no doubt that the actual numbers--and the tax problems--were a rude surprise to the board and management, one has to ask 'WHY?" The large amount of dough coming in--and the relatively little going out was apparent to us on this board, to chefs, to many outsiders for years. They need a defined purpose and goals and to live up to them. With all the attendant checks and balances and a degree of transparency and honesty with it's supporters and members that has so far been missing.

2) They need to correct the impression--widely held--that if you're not a dues paying member, or haven't cooked at the House, or contributed to a function, that you ain't getting recognized. Which is to say real, up to date, INFORMED outreach to up and coming chefs and cooks all over the country. Perhaps chefs should be invited on the basis of local or regional panels who are more likely to have actually eaten their food. The whole process needs examining and fixing.

3) A library. For fuck's sake--it's the LEAST they can do. They've been pouring money into that little house for years!! How about a lending/reference library for professionals. Help interested culinarians AND save some classic cookbooks and food and culinary arts related works while you're at it. This seems a no-brainer.

4) MORE and REAL scholarships to people who need them. Which is to say time to give back to all the latinos who make up so much of this industry and who are CONSPICUOUSLY absent at Beard events and awards ceremonies. The House gives the impression of not liking or caring about cooks very much (unless they're working for free--and even then). Time to fix that. Last time I went to the Awards ceremony, I hadn't seen so many white people together since George Wallace ran for president. It's a shameful and distorted reflection of an industry that would shut down cold without Mexican and latino workers.

5) In that vein, some useful and free immigration advice and assistance to those seeking a grandfathered green card. As we all know, a lot of our cooks pay a lot of bread to corrupt lawyers and fixers for help they never get.

6) Open the nominating process up a bit. Regions should nominate/vote by region--not reflect who got more national press or attended more foodie functions.

7) Ratchet down the whole Cult of James Beard. Okay, he was an important guy, we all know that. He wasn't a particularly NICE guy though, was he? He's dead. Time to keep the name and save the institution. Any money spent on lavish filmed hummers/salutes to the Great Man for the awards is money better spent elsewhere. And LAY OFF JULIA CHILD!! She refused to endorse or attach her name to anything. Don't start using her name to raise money (with corporate co-sponshorship). I know it's tempting--but would be in appaling taste.

8) Figure out why so many of the Beard dinners are attended by the same mummies all the time--and not a younger and more influential crowd. A chef comes all the way to NYC to cook for free and pick up all that expense, it would be nice of the meal was attended by a few people who could help them.

9) Take a look at what the Jean Louis Palladin Foundation does on a tiny budget (sending cooks to farms to learn how food is raised and where it comes from) and curl up in shame. Then emulate them.

10) Unload all dead wood, and anyone who didn't know but SHOULD have known.

11) Examine and PUBLISH actual expenses. How much did all these functions cost? Where exactly was the money spent? Was it all necessary to the mission? Or more self celebration/self aggrandisement? Any flab? Any rake-offs? Back-scratching? Anybody "testing" equipment or foodstuffs in their home? It'll be a bitter pill to swallow--but necessary now to reassure the public and the industry. Invoice by invoice by invoice, let's take a hard look at the past before trying to establish a future. "Food" "Labor" "Equipment" will not be enough. Line by line, all the way back--track the cat backwards.

12) Hubris, pride, neglect. We have quite enough of that these days. Confession is good for the soul.

12) Consider what the fuck Swoozie Kurtz has to do with food or chefs--and WHY she should host the awards ceremony? The choice of hosts only points up the disconnect between Foundation and the industry. Who's the next year's host? Todd Bridges? Danny Bonaduce? This should be the Oscars of food--not the Golden Globes.

[intraining]

wow - cool - it's a new day

[Fat Guy]

Vic, that's all well and good as a wish. But what will cause the Beard Foundation to make actual, meaningful change? Surely not this attitude of "it's the only game in town." Monopoly is no recipe for good deeds.

The Beard Foundation needs to have its feet held to the fire of competition. It needs to see its members taking their donations elsewhere. And it needs to see an industry that quits kowtowing and starts working towards making other awards, other types of publicity, and other forms of recognition as valuable as anything the Beard Foundation has provided. The industry, the members, the food editors and writers . . . they have all been complicit in supporting the Beard Foundation monopoly, and together they can end it.

There should be other options for chefs from around the world to come to New York and other centers of cuisine and cook for the media, the industry, the tastemakers, and the interested public. There's no need for the Beard House's crappy facility if restaurants start hosting such events more often, perhaps with the aid of a coordinating umbrella organization. After all, the Beard House kitchen is so crappy that many visiting chefs do all their prep in a local restaurant kitchen anyway. Most nights in New York City, save perhaps for the holiday season and such, there are scores of unused kitchens and dining rooms, at hotels, in corporate spaces, and more. The Beard House simply isn't needed if somebody can coordinate those other resources.

There's so much more that could be done with so much less money than the Beard Foundation has had. They had their chance to operate as a benevolent monopoly. They failed.

[cdh]

Word.

And another thought-- make the organization a little more transparent and comprehensible. And make it clear how one would get involved in the organization as a volunteer.

And get over the whole Hamptons-venerating socialite-wannabe thing... show that the people running the place care more about quality than panache. Beard should be about the cutting edge... not the trendy. Let chefs with wild new ideas come and cook, and if their ideas catch on, then all the better...

[StudentChefEclipse]

A library WOULD be the least Beard House could do. I have never had the pleasure of going there, but I would in a minute if I could get some decent research done. The NYC Public Library, I understand, has a good Culinary section, and would doubtless help with organizing such a library for Beard House.

Food writing is what I have chosen to do with my culinary education and more and better scholarships would be great too. But i salivate (almost literally) at the thought of a tasty collection of food books available to professionals.

[intraining]

hi again, i'm popping up all over this topic!!!!

a new non profit should be mobile. it should go where it thinks it needs to be, rather than being where it thinks chefs need to come.

ok, since i'm new, bare with me. so, a chef gets invited to jbf to cook and pays for everything for recognition?

i can understand that part, but these chefs should all become integral to it and become one big happy family. say, for instance, chef intraining, delights and becomes 'involved' in this new organization. chef intraining should be pooled along with others to go on the road to discover new talents, be it, truly on the road, or to visit known chefs, or to take an entourage from the organization to hold the next 'show'. basically, to become a prestigous volunteer.

ok, so this is a little loose, but it does seem to take the eliteness away a little don't you think?

[Carrot Top]

If anyone can bust open that place, that group, and make it the shining thing it should be, it will be someone like you, Bourdain.

That little (now becoming elderly) clique that originally gathered round James Beard before the Beard Foundation even began ,set the tone that seems to have continued...and that tone is a large part of who they are (or who they think they are).They won't let go of that slow stodgy determined exclusivity easily.

Keep kicking at it, please. There are many who could (and should) benefit from seeing change within that monied potentially-good monster.

[Dave the Cook]

Following is an excerpt from an e-mail we received from Phyllis Isaacson, Director of Information Services at The James Beard Foundation. (Since we're in a membership hold at the moment, she wasn't able to join and post herself.)

. . . The New York Times was incorrect in stating that we give away only $27,000 in scholarship money. (A correction was posted online, in fact.) We actually administer over $200,000 in scholarships, most of which has been raised through our fundraising efforts and awarded by a scholarship committee.  We do plan to increase the amount that comes from our general fund . . .

. . . From the level of discussion it seems that not many of your forum members have ever been to the Beard House or understand our mission. Many people forget that The James Beard Foundation has been instrumental in launching the careers of many of today's top chefs, let alone in helping to create the industry.  Becoming a chef was not a popular career choice fifteen years ago.

Please refer to the entire message here.

[Dave the Cook]

Please see the statement from Melanie Young, James Beard Foundation Awards Director, in this related thread.

[Michael Ruhlman]

Please, somebody, Fat Guy, make sure the new powers at the Beard House see Bourdain’s on-the-money manifesto. Can they read, can they hear? The fact that they’ve been using chefs’ money and work and time to feed and bloat themsleves is indescribably appalling. That they became besotted by their own perceived importance in the culinary world is more understandable, but no less appalling. They had better come clean, and do it fast, or IACP, a group run by culinary professionals, or some other group, will step in to fill the void.

[bourdain]

The Beardies, in various public statements and back channel communications with journalists and chefs seem to continue to miss a very basic point. While they acknowledge that moneys might have been misused (by rogue elements--a loose cannon a lone nut..etc.) they seem to remain in denial and oblivious to the bigger picture, the more pervasive problem. Problem being that a lot of chefs, food writers and food professionals are privately wringing their hands with glee at their problems.

Their problems cannot be fixed by weakly explaining or clarifying numbers--or promising to do better in the future. Michael's post demonstrates perfectly what the larger problem is: that Beard House is widely perceived as an elite, private dining club blissfully disengaged and oblivious to the needs and concerns of the professional chefs it claims to celebrate--and even disengaged (it appears) from their own financial operations. It is seen by many chefs as a necessary evil to be catered to-- like Venetian princes--in return for patronage (publicity) rather than genuinely admired. The library issue is a good example. So they have a library. Great. Who fucking knew? And it's open to the public--by appointment apparently. I guess you have to pony up all those bucks for membership and the self-congratulatory little newsletter to find that out. My point is that humility, some OUTREACH to working chefs and cooks who DON'T currently belong (and might never) would be a good thing. That the perception of the Beard House needs to be radically alterered if it is to avoid future irrelevance.

I'm not suggesting that the Beard House become a charity for needy chefs--or a social service like a foodie job corps--but real engagement with the profession, a staff and personnel who are seen by chefs as insiders--rather than outsiders--could only be for the good. The Beard Cult HAS done a lot of good work by publicizing chefs--and it has--and will no doubt continue to do so. But the remaining aparachiks would be well advised to stop clinging so fiercely and defensively to the status quo. Scandal may suck--but it is also an opportunity.

Change can be good. Especially when it is (as many, many observers agree) badly needed.

[Bux]

This thread is being closed. Please post to the earlier thread Beard Foundation: Cooks Books.