Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I think the James Beard Awards are fixed.

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (Honest-food.net)--which I had never even heard of--is one of the three "best food blogs," along with unimpressive commercial blogs from Bon Appetit and Sunset magazines? All three are far less entertaining than Serious Eats, IMHO.

I have a food blog (barrypopik.com) and I paid the $100 entry fee. (It takes me weeks to earn $100.) My food writing is as good as anyone's. I'm known for the origins of the "hot dog," "hamburger" and "pizza." I'm a consultant/contributor for the Oxford English Dictionary, the Dictionary of American Regional English, and the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

In 2008, I made well over 400 food-related posts on my blog, including the origins of "comfort food," "junk food," "seafood," "surf and turf," "gorp," "melt" sandwiches, "croque monsieur," "grilled cheese," "blue plate special" and much more. Newspaper columnists have cited my 2008 work on the history of "fortune cookies" and "red velvet cake," and people have frequently linked my work to Wikipedia.

James Beard would have loved it.

"Food Oscars" -- heck, I even did amazing work on the origin of "Oscar" (Academy Award). The name comes from a 1934 column by New York Daily News entertainment writer Sidney Skolsky, who was thinking about New York opera producer Oscar Hammerstein.

I find it very difficult that my life's work (including solving "the Big Apple") has never been nominated for anything. Is 400+ food posts not good enough? Maybe I should have written 4,000? 40,000? Would that have made a difference? Probably not.

Does food history research matter? Is there any category for it, in any food awards, anywhere?

Who were these judges? What was the vote? Do I even get an e-mail for my $100, or a letter, about anything? Could I be told that my entry was received? Could I be told who won?

This stinks!