Bryant's a Star!

It was a blast to toast Bryant tonight as he was awarded, along with our food-politics hero Marion Nestle, with the first Natural Gourmet Cooking School's Award of Excellence in Health Education. Bryant gave a moving and eloquent talk about how much the award meant to him, and I got to be among all of his awesome friends and colleagues as we cheered. Annemarie Colbin, founded the school thirty years ago (tonight was also a birthday fete) and she introduced the evening's awardees. She told the crowd of 100 or more that was crammed into the large demonstration kitchen that when she started the school people were aghast: Eek, a cooking school that focuses on fennel not foie gras? On beets not beef?! She was among the vanguard; now the school's philosophy is mainstream. And soon, she said, we might just be passe!