2011 JBF Awards: Welcome!

Welcome to the live blog of the 2011 James Beard Foundation Awards. The culinary stars are arriving on the red carpet, tonight’s featured chefs are setting up for the reception, and our team of guest bloggers is gearing up for the festivities. We’d like to introduce tonight’s guest bloggers who’ll be reporting, eating, and rubbing elbows with all the fabulous food folk: Just like years past, the team at Savory Cities will be joining Jennifer Leuzzi of Snack on the red carpet. Jennifer, a veteran of the JBF Awards, will be checking in to share her unique perspective throughout the night and interviewing winners as they make their way through the press room. Immaculate Infatuation: Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal are in the music biz, but we can’t get enough of their unabashedly honest NYC restaurant reviews on their site, Immaculate Infatuation. Megan & MHT: Megan Krigbaum, associate wine editor of Food & Wine (and former JBF staffer), and her other half, photographer Michael Harlan Turkell, photo editor of Edible Brooklyn/Manhattan magazines and host of The Food Seen on Heritage Radio Network. Foodspotting: You might know them best from their international food spottings, but tonight Fiona Tang and Amy Cao of the mobile app and online food community, Foodspotting, will be giving us dispatches from behind the scenes at the Beard Awards. Tonight, for the first time, we’ll also be live-streaming the entire show. To watch, head over to jamesbeard.org/awardslive. You'll also see feeds of the live-blog and our Twitter page, where we’ll be posting the winners as they’re announced.