Vikram Vij and Lynn Crawford among winners of food writing awards
TORONTO — Celebrity chefs Vikram Vij and Lynn Crawford are among the top winners of the Taste Canada Awards for culinary writing.
Vij wins gold in the “culinary narrative” category for his Penguin Canada book “Vij,” while silver went to Fitzhenry & Whiteside’s “9000 Years of Wine,” by Rod Phillips.
Crawford tops the general cookbook category for her Penguin Canada release “Farm to Chef,” while silver went to “The Simple Bites Kitchen” by Aimée Wimbush-Bourque, also from Penguin Canada.
The 26 gold and silver award winners were revealed at an awards gala Monday in Toronto.
The annual gala brings together writers, publishers, chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, and cookbook fans to promote the art and culture of culinary writing in French and English. This year, 91 cookbooks and 50 food blogs entered the competition.
Data compiled by BookNet Canada found 1.4 million English-language books in the “cooking” subject category were sold in 2017, valued at $47.4 million. The hall of fame awards — for authors of a stellar culinary book or body of work that has had a lasting impact on Canadian cuisine — went to Graham Kerr for “The Galloping Gourmet” while a posthumous award went to Constance Hart, considered the first Jewish person in Canada to write a cookbook.
Here’s a look at the Englishlanguage winners:
Regional/cultural cookbooks
Gold: “Feast: Recipes and Stories from a Canadian Road Trip” by Lindsay Anderson and Dana VanVeller (Appetite by Random House)
Silver: “The Okanagan Table: The Art of Everyday Home Cooking” by Rod Butters (Figure 1)
Single-subject cookbooks
Gold: “All the Sweet Things: Baked Goods and Stories from the Kitchen of Sweetsugarbean” by Renee Kohlman (TouchWood Editions)
Silver: “Cooking with Cocktails” by Kristy Gardner (Countryman Press)
Health and special diet cookbooks
Gold: “Yum & Yummer: Ridiculously Tasty Recipes That’ll Blow Your Mind, But Not Your Diet!” by Greta Podleski (Author/One Spoon Media Inc.)
Silver: “The First Mess Cookbook” by Laura Wright (Penguin Canada)
General food blogs
Gold: “Rhubarb & Cod,” by Susan Keefe
Silver: “The Lemon Apron,” by Jennifer Emilson
Health and special diet blogs
Gold: “Oh She Glows,” by Angela Liddon
Silver: “Joyous Health,” by Joy McCarthy