I awoke last Tuesday morning with the full intention of posting something on factory farming and the hazards it poses to our national health and to the health of the planet, but when I logged onto my computer I saw that my friend and colleague, Tim McKee, had been named "Best Chef Midwest Region" by the James Beard Foundation. So I thought I would get down off my horse for awhile to pay tribute to this achievement.
For those of you unfamiliar with the James Beard Awards, they are the culinary world's equivalent of the Academy Awards. This was Tim's third trip to the finals. It was also the third appearance in the finals for my friend Alex Roberts and the second for Issac Becker. I have been flattered to be included among the semi-finalists the last two years, but I haven't been unable to break through to the finals. There are thirty semi-finalists representing our region each year, and the five finalists are culled from those nominees. Generally speaking, it's a pretty heady group so making it to the finals is quite an accomplishment. Winning it is an extraordinary honor.
Tim and I have been friends for about fifteen years, and he is an exceptionally talented chef with a very sophisticated vision for his food. This honor could not have gone to a more deserving chef, and it is long overdue. Why so overdue? That's a good question. No one from Minnesota has ever won this award. Prior to the last three years, Minnesota was included in the same region as Chicago; and the awards almost invariably went to Chicago area chefs. Sure, there was the occasional chef from Wisconsin or Michigan that managed to win in an odd year when the votes for the Chicago chefs were split amongst the voters; but we in Minnesota have never benefited from that. Now, without the Second City in the mix, the field has opened up quite a bit for us.
In addition, the rules are skewed toward chefs who are working in larger metropolitan areas. While anyone can vote to nominate chefs for the semi-finals, the voting for the finalists as well as for the actual winners is limited to those whom the foundation has deemed to include. These people are members of the media as well as previous award winners and other luminaries in the culinary world. The main stipulation binding the voters is that they have to have eaten in the restaurants of the chefs for whom they cast their votes. For a someone like me in St. Paul, let alone someone in Outstate Minnesota, the chance that a significant number of voters have even visited my town let alone eaten in my restaurant is pretty slim. Even if they do eat here, I have to pretty much knock their socks off to the point that their meals are memorable enough that they will think of me when voting time comes around. Have a bad night, and your opportunity is lost. Combine that with the fact that some of the voters are from right here in the Twin Cities, and the cards are pretty much stacked against a chef from Minnesota winning the Beard.
Why, you may ask, does having voters from here work against us? Well, I think we can attribute that to our weird combination of stubborn provincialism accompanied by a profound sense of inadequacy. This is a very strange dichotomy that I have never experienced anywhere else in the country. Let me explain. People from Minnesota tend to think that it's the best place in the world even if they have never been anyplace else. There are good reasons for this. Having lived and worked in many other places, I can truthfully say that Minnesota is a pretty darn nice place to be; and I feel very fortunate to live here. Our state has been very good to me over the years, and I try to be good in return. But accompanying this very provincial attitude is a profound sense of insecurity about our real value. Someone coming here from another place, particulatrly from either coast or from the European continent, is immediately bestowed with an elevated professional stature by the denizens of our great state. The attitude seems to be that if someone is from New York or L.A. or Miami, let alone France or Italy, then that person must be more sophisticated, more talented and better trained than us. This seems to be especialy true when we are talking about creative professions. I know this to be the case since I benefited from this phenomenon when I moved here in September of 1985. In less than a year, I had my first executive chef position; and by 1988 I held my first corporate chef position and had been written up in Food&Wine and Gourmet. I honestly don't think that I was anymore talented than many of my homegrown peers back then, but my provenance seemed to garner me a lot more attention.
So here I am a quarter century later applauding the work and achievements of a Minnesota born and raised chef who somehow managed to snare one of the biggest prizes in our profession.
Chef Tim McKee, not only are we, your peers and colleagues, thrilled and excited for you; but everyone in the State of Minnesota should be so incredibly proud of a real home town boy made good. Congratualtions on an honor both hard earned and well deserved. I look forward to continuing to enjoy your work as often as I am able. I just hope I can still get a reservation now that you're a superstar.