'Eat your greens and you'll grow up big and strong,' said my grandmother. Say that loud enough nowadays and you'll get your own TV series and a million-pound book deal, not to mention being showered with awards. Instead she just died of old age, sitting by the fire in a damp tenement in Birmingham.
Yes, it's awards time again at Observer Food Monthly and I must immediately say an enormous thank you to the thousands who voted. Each vote is a step towards giving recognition to a shopkeeper, food producer, restaurant brigade or anyone who has worked tirelessly to promote good, honest food. Be it the cheapest eats or the best Sunday lunch, the most enjoyable television show or the most outstanding contribution to what we eat, these are the awards you've voted for. OK, we had a few specialist judges for some of the categories, and thank you to Ruthie Rogers, Jay Rayner, Giorgio Locatelli, Jeanette Orrery, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Gordon Ramsay, Waitrose's Rupert Thomas and OFM's Nicola Jeal and Caroline Boucher for your time and expertise. And what a line-up of awards it is, featuring names old and new and shops, restaurants and pubs everywhere from Oswestry to Brighton and Sussex to Skye.
The award for best cheap eats couldn't have gone to a more deserving place. Walk into St John Bread and Wine, with its Sunday-school chairs and chalk-board menu and you always know you are in for something good. Possibly the least pretentious cooking in the capital, this no-frills place could have won for its bacon sandwiches alone. And where else are you going to find a main course of lentils, goat's curd and monk's beard, or seed cake and a glass of Madeira? If only there were more places like this.
I am pretty chuffed to see several of my favourite names in this year's dinner gongs including Brindisa, winner of best retailer where I have bought jamon, olives and sherry vinegar for more years than I can count, and Chez Bruce on Wandsworth Common. There is something instantly 'right' about this place. This is not 'ego cooking', where there are too many silly little things on your plate and the restaurant staff spend hours explaining what you've got in front of you. This is simply some of the best food you will find, understated and devoid of the preciousness that is so often mistaken for fine cooking nowadays. The fact that you may not have even heard of Bruce Poole who has kept this kitchen on an even keel for a decade probably says it all.
Congratulations also to The Three Chimneys on Skye, for being voted the most beautifully situated restaurant in the country (the stars you get in the night sky there are the only ones a restaurant really needs) and also to Skye Gyngell at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond for being short-listed for best Sunday lunch - it was the latter Skye whom I chose to cook the celebratory dinner to launch The Kitchen Diaries. (And many thanks to those of you who voted for it in the book category.)
Our biggest gong, the hall of fame award, goes to Patrick Holden of the Soil Association, which you could say is the true heart of the organic movement. Patrick has campaigned tirelessly in support of organic food and farming, building public awareness and influencing government and industry alike. Our first outstanding contribution award rightly goes to Jamie Oliver not just for telling our kids to eat up their greens like my gran did, but making sure they actually get the chance to. Well done everyone. OFM