The Canadian Culinary Book Awards get an extreme makeover

The Canadian Culinary Book Awards have a new name, a new logo and, the organizers hope, some newfound relevance. TV consultant Karen Gelbart (who helped bring the Food Network to Canada) took over as national chair a few months ago and has already put her stamp on the awards, now called Taste Canada—The Food Writing Awards. Gelbart told the Toronto Star that she wants to move away from the “insider feel” of years past to attract more media coverage and more widespread public awareness. In other words, make like the James Beard Foundation and the Giller Prize to generate buzz. As Cookbook Store manager Alison Fryer put it to the Toronto Star: “We’ve got awards for everything—playwrights, poetry, non-fiction, children’s books. For heaven’s sake, cookbooks are always the elephant in the room because they probably sell more than any other category outside of fiction.” Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »