Well, it looks like the folks up at the James Beard foundation sobered up enough to call the office to have the intern hit the “publish” button late yesterday afternoon. The 2006 James Beard nominees are here! All 75,384 of them! Well almost. With 58 categories, the Foundation might be going a little overboard with its awards, but we digress.

The D.C. area fares O.K. in terms of nominations this year, hopefully giving us a chance of pulling in a couple of awards despite a few years of disappointing failure. Last year was especially stinging, as four areas chefs lost out when the award for the Mid-Atlantic region went to a Philadelphian. For shame! Now I’ve never been to Philly, but how crappy must it be if our Nation’s founding fathers leave it to build a capital in a swamp with the worst summer humidity this side of Bangladesh? How can we lose to that?