Good Food Awards: Carolina winners

The first Good Food Awards kicked off last week in San Francisco, with Alice Waters and thousands of food fans in attendance at the Ferry Plaza Building. The Good Food Awards Seal was awarded to 71 artisan or small-batch products from 26 states. The seal recognizes contributions toward "a more tasty, authentic and responsible food system in urban and rural communities throughout the nation."

There were a sprinkling of winners from the Carolinas in the seven categories. Surprisingly, there were no home-states winners in the beer, cheese and chocolate categories (we have some mighty good contenders in all three). And most of the winners were clustered in the Triangle - maybe next year we'll see some well-deserved attention for producers in the mountains and the Piedmont. But we had winners in charcuterie, coffee, pickles and preserves:

Charcuterie:

• Cypressata from Cypress restaurant, Charleston.
• Sweet potato liverwurst, from Weeping Radish Farm Brewery, Grandy. (I haven't seen the liverwurst locally, but Weeping Radish hot dogs and a few other things are sold by Gilcrest Natural Farms at the Charlotte Regional Farmer's Market.)

Coffee:

• El Aguacate, from Carrboro Coffee Co., Carrboro.
• Finca Kilimanjaro, Counter Culture Coffee, Durham. (Counter Culture has an office and does tastings in Charlotte, and many of its coffees are available at Earth Fare markets.)

Pickles:

• Spicy Green Tomato, from the Farmer's Daughter, Carrboro.

Preserves:

• Bourbon'd Figs, from Farmer's Daughter, Carrboro.

For details, including information on who's behind the awards and Good Food Month, go to www.goodfoodmonth.org.