Do You Know Which Award is Known as the "Oscars of Food"*?

If your answer is the James Beard Foundation Award, you are absolutely right!  The James Beard Foundation (JBF) has issued awards covering all aspects of the American culinary industry since 1990. Awards are given each year in the Spring for chefs and restaurateurs, cookbooks, culinary journalism and broadcasts, and restaurant design. From 2007 to 2014, the annual awards ceremony was held at the Lincoln Center in New York City. However, this year's ceremony will take place on May 4th at the Lyric Opera in Chicago,

The James Beard Foundation Award medallion

The Foundation and its eponymous awards are named after James Beard, the "Dean of American cuisine."** Beard was born in 1903 in Portland, Oregon and died in 1985. A big baby (14 pounds at birth!) he grew to be a big man tipping the scales at over 300 pounds. He was a showman and a died-in-the-wool champion of American cuisine. He hosted America's first television cooking show, I Love to Eat, which first aired (live no less) in 1946. He was also a prolific author who wrote 20 cookbooks, many of which are still available.

James Beard

The Lexington campus Library and Learning Resource Center has several of Mr. Beard's books, and all of them may be borrowed from the library.

James Beard's American cookery by James Beard; with illustrations by Earl Thollander. 
641.5 B368ja

Beard on Bread by James Beard.  641.815 B368b

The Armchair James Beard by James Beard. 641.5 B368a

A Girl, a Legend, and a Plague

National Book Award

Established in 1950, the National Book Award is a literary award given to works of American literature. A panel of judges chooses the finalists and winners of the awards, which are given in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. The National Book Award Foundation chooses the judges, and the judges can include writers, some of whom have won a National Book Award previously, critics, librarians, and booksellers. 

The library has  the following National Book Award winners and finalists, and all three of them may be borrowed or checked out from the library. 

• An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 written by Jim Murphy; (finalist); JF M

• Brown Girl Dreaming written by Jacqueline Woodson; (winner) 811.54 W898b

• The Legend of Buddy Bush written by Shelia Moses; (finalist) JF M  

Select one of the links below to learn more about the National Book Award and previous winners and finalists.

History

A list of winners and finalists  

The National Book Award website

Please don't hesitate to contact the librarians at 859-514-3359, liblex@sullivan.edu, or through our Facebook or Twitter accounts if you have any questions. 

What Do President Kennedy and Singer/Songwriter Bob Dylan Have in Common?

In the early part of the 20^th century, Joseph Pulitzer, the founder and namesake of the Pulitzer Prize, made arrangements in his will for an award honoring excellence in journalism and writing (http://www.pulitzer.org/historyofprizes).

Knowing that, “the times would be a changin”¹, Pulitzer made allowances so that those charged with giving the award could create new categories as they deemed appropriate (http://www.pulitzer.org/historyofprizes.) Now, over a century later, the Pulitzer Prizes are awarded to writers of both online and print materials (http://www.pulitzer.org/expanded_eligibility).  The award has been given to musicians such as Bob Dylan², President John F. Kennedy³, and Lexington’s own Herald-Leader cartoonist, Joel Pett. Now you know what Bob Dylan and President Kennedy have in common.

Here are some of the Pulitzer Prize winning materials that are available in the library. Please ask one of the librarians if you want to borrow any of these items. We will be glad to assist you.

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow; 323.092 G243b

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller; DVD 812.52 M647d

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway; 813 H488o

If you want to know more about Mr. Pulitzer or the prize, keep one reading or select one of the featured links.   

Poet Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African-American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her work titled, Annie Allen.

Biography of Mr. Pulitzer  

History of the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal  

Pulitzer Prize history  

_____________________________________________________________

¹ Bob Dylan’s song The Times They Are a Changin’ was released in 1964 on the album of the same name. http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-times-they-are-a-changin-mw0000202344

² In 2008, the Pulitzer committee awarded Bob Dylan a Special Citation for his contribution to American music. http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2008-Special-Awards-and-Citations.

³President John F. Kennedy is the only president to have won a Pulitzer. http://www.pulitzer.org/faq#q19

All a Buzz

The 2015 Oscar nominations were released today. Here is a list featuring the major categories, but you can also go to the official site for all of the nominees.

Best Picture

American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Actor in a Leading Role

Steve Carrell
Bradley Cooper
Benedict Cumberbatch
Michael Keaton* See Mr. Keaton in Much Ado About Nothing; DVD 822.33 S527mu
Eddie Redmayne

Actress in a Leading Role

Marion Cotillard
Felicity Jones
Julianne Moore
Rosamund Pike
Reese Witherspoon

Actor in a Supporting Role

Robert Duvall *See this nominee in A Civil Action; DVD 346 C582
Ethan Hawke
Edward Norton
Mark Ruffalo
J.K. Simmons

Actress in a Supporting Role
Patricia Arquette
Laura Dern
Keira Knightley *Watch this nominee in Pride and Prejudice; DVD 823.7 A933pp
Emma StoneMeryl Streep *Check out Julie and Julia, Kramer vs. Kramer, or Silkwood to see this nominee.

Ask one of the librarians about borrowing any of the highlighted DVDs.

A-List Food

Last week, we featured the Academy Awards, which everyone knows as the “Oscars.” What follows the Oscar awards ceremony? An Oscar party, of course. One can’t have an Oscar party without food, and one can’t have an A-list party without award-winning food.  To help you with your A-list party, today’s post features award-winning cookbooks.

The International Association of Culinary Professionals annually gives awards to chefs, culinary schools, non-culinary professionals who have advanced the field, and to cookbooks. The IACP has given cookbook awards since 1986, and, as of 2015, the awards for cookbooks are given in a whopping 22 different categories.

The library has some of the IACP award-winning cookbooks, and we will highlight just a few of them for you. If you want to borrow any of these books, or if you want to find out what other IACP books that the library has, simply ask a librarian to help you.

• Book of Tarts: Form, Function, and Flavor at the City Bakery by Maury Rubin; 641.865 R896b

• Culinary Birds: A Complete Guide to Buying and Serving Savory Poultry by John Ash; 641.665 A819c

• Hiroko’s American Kitchen: Cooking with Japanese Flavors by Hiroko Shimbo; 641.5952 S556h

• The Italian Baker: The Classic Tastes of the Italian Countryside--Its Breads, Pizza, Focaccia, Cakes, Pastries, and Cookies by Carol Field; 641.815 F453I

• One Soufflé at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France by Anne Willan; 641.5092 W689o

Information for this post retrieved from the IACP website on 8 January, 2015.

http://www.iacp.com/award/more/iacp_awards_categories

http://www.iacp.com/award/more/cookbook

"This Is Nuts"-The Oscars

The Academy Awards ceremony will be held on February 22, 2015. To get in the mood for the Oscar announcements, why not take a study break and watch some Oscar-winning movies from previous years. The list below includes a sampling of the Oscar-winning movies that the Sullivan University Library has. If you want to borrow any of these movies, ask one of the librarians at the desk. We will be glad to assist you.  

• Babette’s Feast; DVD 791.43 B113
• Dead Poets Society: DVD 808 D278
• Erin Brockovich; DVD 791.43 E68
• The Great Gatsby; DVD 791.4372 G786
• Kramer vs. Kramer; DVD 346.7301 K89
• Norma Rae; DVD 791.43 N842
• A Streetcar Named Desire; DVD 812.5 W727s

If you don’t have time to watch the movies, but you still have an interest in the Oscars, keep on reading for some cool sites related to the awards.

Maybe you are curious to know when the awards ceremony was first televised or how they came to be in the first place. If so, the Academy Award history page has a cool timeline of events on it.

For a quick laugh or cry check out either the Funny Oscar moments or Memorable acceptance speeches.

The Academy also has two pretty nifty databases. One database lists all of the nominees and award winners, and the other database indexes all of the acceptance speeches.

*The quote, "This is nuts," is from Jennifer Lawrence's acceptance speech. Retrieved from the Academy Award Acceptance Speech Database.

“Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?” *

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With the NFL playoffs underway and various awards ceremonies slated for this month and next, the library has chosen to highlight some of our award-winning materials this month.

In addition to the Academy Awards, aka the Oscars, there are the more well-known awards like the Golden Globes, Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, the Nobel Prizes, and the Pulitzer Prizes, but really there are so many more accolades than these.

In the book world, there are the aforementioned Pulitzers and Nobels, along with the National Book Award, the Hugo Awards, the EdgarAwards,  the Eisner Awards, the JamesBeard and the IACP awards, and the Newbery and Caldecott awards, just to name a few. 

The library has specific award winners, and it also contains materials produced by previous award-winning artists and writers.

In the words of TV announcers, “Stay tuned,” to the library’s blog, Facebook and Tumblr pages, and our Twitter account this month to learn more about various awards and the Sullivan library materials related to those awards. 

*Sandra Bullock, 2010 Oscar acceptance speech. Retrieved from: Parade Magazine, http://parade.com/265652/ashleighschmitz/10-memorable-quotes-from-oscars-acceptance-speeches/