Sister Paper Takes Beard Award for Pig Story

Congratulations to Kristen Hinman from our sister paper in St. Louis, The Riverfront Times, for her James Beard award for best Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes, for her article "The Pope of Pork."

The James Beard Awards are like The Oscars for the culinary world.

Kristen's article about the pork farming co-op that provides the meat for Chipotle restaurant, and the visionary farmer behind it, makes an excellent case for the humane treatment of animals meant for slaughter.

With several branches in South Florida, it's good to know that Chipotle stands by its mission to provide food with integrity. At least the pork in their burritos comes from pigs that live happy, drug free lives in wide open spaces before they meet their fate at the slaughterhouse, although the way they're killed in gas chambers or by electric shock is still pretty disturbing after hearing how much their behaviors resemble that of humans.

The James Beard Awards for chefs and restaurants will be presented today and we congratulate Chef Douglas Rodriguez from OLA and Chef Michael Schwartz from Michael's Genuine Food and Drink in Miami for their nominations for Best Chef South and Chef Michelle Bernstein for Sra. Martinez's nomination for best new restaurant. We will keep you posted as to the winners tomorrow.

thanks to @MPChicago for live tweeting the awards and allowing us to give you this breaking news.