Last year, Israeli chef Michael Solomonov won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef (and an Israellycool award for Outstanding Pose).
This year, someone who glorifies the murderer of Israelis like Michael is a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Best Chef.
Awards season for restaurants kicked off today with the release of the annual list of James Beard Foundation Awards semifinalists. In what seems par for the course, the Bay Area had a solid showing, with 28 nominations.
The most notable aspect of this year’s nominations list concerns the demographics of the Best Chef West category, which covers California, Hawaii and Nevada. Out of the nine Bay Area chefs nominated, six are women, compared to last year, when the Bay Area contingent was 10 strong but only three women were included.
Among the new additions to the Best Chef West list are 2017 Chronicle Rising Star Chef Reem Assil (Reem’s California, Oakland) who is getting her first James Beard nod less than a year after opening the doors to her namesake bakery in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood.
Yup, this Reem Assil.
According to the above article:
In the past few years, the Restaurant and Chef Awards committee (Chronicle columnist Chris Ying is a member) has taken major steps toward broadening the nominations to encompass more cuisines, more women and more business operators of color.
And more terror supporters, apparently.
I looked over the James Beard Award policies, and could not find anything about being disqualified if you support terrorism.
Nevertheless, here’s hoping once they are made aware of this fact, they will factor it in to their decision-making – or, better yet, disqualify her.
