The 2005 RAMMYs aren’t the only culinary awards on the horizon. The nominees for the 2005 James Beard Foundation awards were announced yesterday (.pdf). The awards are separated into three general segments, cookbooks, journalism, and restaurants and chefs. In the journalism segment, Todd Kliman of the City Paper (who most recently “reviewed” Perdu) was nominated for Best Newspaper Column for his weekly “Young and Hungry” feature. Tom Sietsema of the Post has been nominated for Best Newspaper Feature about Restaurants a number of times, but this is the first nomination for Kliman, who has been writing for the City Paper since late 2003.

Many of the national nominations in the restaurants and chefs category were dominated by the New York area. However, noted “power restaurant” Kinkead’s wine service, directed by Michael Flynn, was nominated for the Waterford Outstanding Wine Service Award. The mid-Atlantic regional nominations for Best Chef were dominated by the D.C. area, with Mark Furstenberg of Breadline, Todd Gray of Equinox, Frank Ruta of Palena, and Fabio Trabocchi of McClean’s Maestro receiving nominations.

With all these restaurant awards being announced, we wonder: are the award ceremony menus (like the menu for this year’s Beard Journalism Award dinner) the equivalent of the Oscars’ ubiquitous fashion watch? Will the Food Network have a tuxedoed Alton Brown watching the servers as they emerge from the kitchen doors of the New York Marriott Marquis? Though not for everyone, this DCist thinks televising the awards would make for some enjoyable watching, especially if some of the food world’s more annoying personalities show up to cause trouble.