I opened my CUESA newsletter last Friday to see this lead paragraph:

Good Food Awards Marketplace ~ Tomorrow
The Good Food Awards — the first national awards platform to recognize American food crafters — celebrate the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsibly produced. Taste, buy, and meet the producers behind the 71 winning products from across the country. The inaugural Good Food Awards Marketplace is free to the public, and will be held against the backdrop of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Saturday, January 15th from 8am to 2pm. Learn more at http://www.goodfoodawards.org. There will also be a month of related events around the Bay Area from January 16 to February 20.

I am so there. When I got to the Market on Saturday at my usual time of about 8:15, I couldn’t miss the many stalls lined up behind the arcade. Since it was my normal shopping day, I knew what I had and what I needed, but never mind that, this was a special occasion.

It wasn’t hard to find special things that I liked, and while I didn’t go on a buying spree, I did indulge myself.

Here’s what I got.

Prosciutto La Quercia Americano
Norwalk, Iowa
La Quercia (La Kwair-cha).  We make artisan cured meats or salumi–prosciutto, pancetta, coppa, speck, lonza, guanciale, and lardo. Seeking out the best possible ingredients, produced responsibly, we craft them by hand into something that expresses our appreciation for the beauty and bounty of Iowa.

Pine Street Market Dry-Cured Coppa
Avondale Estates, Georgia

Olympic Provisions Saucisson D’Arles
Portland, Oregon

Olympic Provisions is home to both a European-style restaurant and deli serving lunch and dinner, as well as Oregon’s first USDA certified meat-curing facility.
We Are the Champions, my friends!!  Our Saucisson d’Arles, Loukanika and pork liver mousse won Good Food Awards in San Francisco.

Spirit Creek Farm Green Grown Lacto-Fermented Purple Sauerkraut 16 oz
Cornucopia, Wisconsin
Traditionally handcrafted and fermented Sauerkraut, Purple Sauerkraut and Kim Chi using local organic vegetables grown in Northern Wisconsin
Lacto-Fermentation is an ancient process of enhancement and preservation.  Cultures that live on the surface of vegetables turn the sugars in the vegetables into lactic acid. The integrity and nutritional value of the vegetables are held intact whereas the use of vinegar and pasteurization compromises and even negates nutritional value. We recommend beginning every meal with fermented foods.

Cultured Classics Yin Yang Carrots 15 oz
Use like a salsa, chutney or relish.

Ceres Community Foods arame & ginger Sauerkraut Salad 24 oz
Blending organic cabbage with arame sea vegetable and organic ginger creates a subtly spicy and complex flavor reminiscent of the best of Asian foods.

And what is the best way to get started on eating it? Since most of what I was attracted to was charcuterie and condiments, how ‘bout a charcuterie platter for dinner? It would match perfectly with the leftover Borscht I have in the fridge to make a meal. And that’s just what I did.

I added a cheese to round out the platter, one that gets my personal Good Food Award:

Cowgirl Creamery Wagon Wheel
Petaluma, California

Wagon Wheel is Cowgirl Creamery’s “everyday” cheese. The twenty-five pound wheel is made with milk from neighboring Straus Family Creamery. Ten wheels a week are produced in our new First Street Creamery in Petaluma and aged on site for two months. Wagon Wheel was designed to be on hand for everyday cooking and snacking. The 25-pound wheel has a mild, sweet milk flavor that makes it a delightful table cheese.

Acme Baguette, cornichones, Saucisson D’Arles, Wagon Wheel cheese

Prosciutto and coppa

Looks like a meal, completed by three jars of Raye’s Mustards. Just add a bowl of leftover borscht after…

BOILERPLATE
Some information I gleaned about the Good Food Awards. I never heard of them until the Marketplace was announced in the CUESA newsletter. Turns out, this is the first annual.

The Good Food Awards celebrate the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsibly produced. We grant awards to outstanding American food producers and the farmers who provide their ingredients. We host an annual Awards Ceremony and Marketplace at the iconic Ferry Building in San Francisco to honor new Good Food Award recipients and also organize a month of events and tastings to support the wider community making good food.
In its inaugural year, Good Food Awards will be given to winners in seven categories: beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, coffee, pickles and preserves. Awards will be given to producers and their food communities from each of five regions of the US. The Good Food Awards seal, found on winning products, assures consumers they have found something exceptionally delicious that also supports sustainability and social good.
Seedling Projects
The Good Food Awards are being organized by Seedling Projects in collaboration with a broad community of food producers, chefs, food writers and passionate food-lovers. A committee of food producers and experts has been assembled to advise on criteria and shape each part of the Good Food Award, and they in turn have selected a dozen judges that represent the entire country and spectrum of food expertise to judge each category.
Seedling Projects is a social enterprise organization led by Sarah Weiner and Dominic Phillips, who have united their diverse skills to support the sustainable food movement. Through focused events and strategic models we engage the public in finding better ways to feed our communities. Our collaborative approach draws upon the wealth of talent and creativity of our colleagues and community organizations.
Sarah has worked as a community organizer within the food movement for nearly a decade, and Dominic has 18 years of experience producing large-scale events all over the world. Seedling Projects works in step with the sustainable food movement to bring Good Food to all. Good Food is delicious, crafted by people who are treated fairly, and grown in a way that promotes a healthy, diverse environment. Good Food has a story. It connects us to one another. It helps communities to grow. It makes us all enjoy life more fully.